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Scarey thought

Friday, September 26th, 2008

What if this “financial crisis” was planned? 

Before you think I am crazy think of this.  Big banks help GWB get elected, in return he says he will pay them back.  His term is coming to an end, he doesn’t care about public opinion so he and his cronies figure, “let’s create a crisis that nets our big bank friends some money.” This probably occured at the beginning of his second term.  So they get together and brainstorm the best crisis to create.  Ta-da the mortgage crisis is born.

Apparently banks were going to people who had already paid off their homes and convincing them to get new mortgages. “Send your kids to college, buy a cottage, take a vacation.”  Now those folks are paying dearly.  There are also allegations of banks knowingly giving mortgages to illegals. 

They start giving loans to people they know damn well can’t pay it back and BANG! 700 billion dollar bail out.

In Canada Stephen Harper has changed what was a surplus into a deficit. Why? So he can begin making cuts to those things he is opposed to, like the arts. Community groups are also feeling the crunch. Meanwhile he’s handing tax cuts to polluting oil companies because the support his neo-con right wing religious agenda. Won’t be long before we are in the same boat as the US.

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Divided we stand, united we fall

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

The US mortgage crisis makes me laugh. Ya that’s right – a sick, ironic laugh.  The taxpayers are about to get fucked in the ass one more time by Bush on his way out the door.  Bush went on the TV last night talking about the “crisis hitting America”. There is no crisis. Stop and think about it. People got loans to buy houses they can’t afford to pay back. So what?

Are the houses gone? Did the land disappear? No.

In fact, these companies that backed the mortgages will still own the land AND get a 700 billion dollar bail out. The US is going to use taxes to bail out investing.  That is essentially using public funds to bail out gamblers.  And investors are beginning to salivate at the thought of a big buy out which is evident in the favorable turn in the markets this morning.

That’s the funny thing about the markets, it is driven on emotion.  Investors, like mud hens, or lemmings tend to follow the crowd.  So when one yells the sky is falling, they all panic and dump their stocks causing the stocks’ value to plummet.

And there’s the rub.  None of it is real.  It is all smoke and mirrors. 

It works like this:

So I have $100.   I loan $10 to 10 friends with an interest of 20%. Which means I would make $12 back from each.  However, I don’t want to tie up my money so I bundle up the loans into a “fund” which I then sell to 10 other people for 10 dollars a share promising them each 10% interest.  This means I will pay each of them $11 when the fund matures.  I have made $10 and it has cost me nothing since I still have the $100 that I started with.  I do it again, and again,  and again…

You can see the trouble that happens when the people I loaned the money to stop paying me back.  I can no longer back my funds. 

If I want to borrow some money from the bank to buy a house, I promise that if I can’t pay them back they can keep the house, (foreclosure) I have backed it up (collateral).  But if the bank promised someone else that if they loaned the bank that money (investment), they would pay them back with interest where is the banks collateral?  There isn’t any.  You are betting that the bank will give you return on your money based on the fact banks always make money.  

If the bank screws up and looses your money you record a capital loss. While it sucks, you the investor take that risk for the chance at large gains.  The government in the US is bailing out banks, when the investors took the risks.  The investors were the only ones who would see the gains, they should have been the ones to take the fall.

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Democracy for China?

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

“May you live in interesting times.” – Old Chinese CurseTiananmen Square

A couple of weeks ago some friends were over and we began discussing China.  While most of them were not Chinese, a few were and a couple more, myself included, had been to China for extended periods of time.  This was about the same time the torch was in France and the protests in Tibet had occured.

We began a debate on whether or not democracy would ever come to China.  My favorite comment came from Sam, from Beijing, who said, “F**k democracy and China”.  Sam was arguing that democracy, while hailed by the West, has yet to pan out into the great form of government it is held up to be.  All one has to do is look at the 2000 and 2004 elections in the US to see something is seriously wrong with it.  And that as far as China as a political entity is concerned, it will outlast communism or democracy. Plus, that for the most part China has a form of democracy, an economic democracy.

I felt that China could develop a democratic political system.   I argued that if the people decided they wanted it, no military effort on the part of the communist party would stop it from coming into being.  There are simply too many eyes watching now.  There really is no corner of the world left to hide and that with the Olympics and the Tibet situation China was really under the microscope.  That it would be much harder for the communist party to sweep something like June 4,1989 under the rug. 

Much has happened in China since then.  Earthquakes have rocked the country, humanitarian efforts have mobilized and China is moving as one mind.  Since the Tiananmen Square incident, (19 years ago) China hasn’t been this united.  Anyone with Chinese friends and MSN messenger will notice the (heart) China.  That was the initial response to the Anti0Chinese, Pro-Tibetan protests around the world.  Since the earthquake Chinese people have rushed to donate blood and money to the relief efforts. When the IOC began the torch relay again the Chinese people spoke out and said, “no, we have a different priority now.”

But the earthquakes have subsided, and now in the aftermath what political aftershocks have yet to be felt?

In a New York Times article, Ma Jian discusses the grief the country is going through with the loss of so many people, particularily children.  Parents are beginning to question why their sons and daughters were sent to schools that collapsed like houses of cards, while government buildings were still standing.  That grief is beginning to turn to anger. Anger at the corruption, the favoritism.  Will this anger become something more?

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Air Canada’s $25 fee is a feeble cash grab

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

There is an article yesterday about Air Canada beginning to charge a $25 fee for extra storm service. This is a plain and simple cash grab. Think about it.

What times of the year are you liable to get caught in a storm….winter. So anyone paying for this extra service in the summer is throwing their money away. They claim “The service, which must be ordered when tickets are first purchased, also provides for the rebooking of flights.” Air Canada is obligated to put you on another flight anyway and unless that means they will book me on another airline again it is money thrown away.

Considering if the storm is at your departure point, you are not going to ask them to put you in a hotel, you are going to go home. If it is at your destination, they are going to fly to somewhere near by and then deal with you there. Unless of course they trap you on the tarmac.

I went onto Air Canada’s website and took a look at some of the cost of flying. A trip on Air Canada Jazz from Toronto Ontario to Victoria BC was $269 before all the taxes and surcharges. If I needed to change that ticket later it was going to cost me $60. I am paying a 22% surcharge to change my ticket. Can you imagine if you bought a TV, watched to exchange it because it didn’t fit and were told there was a 22% surcharge. And for what? What do I get for $60? I get someone doing their fucking job and typing on a computer.

If you are flying international it gets worse. To fly from Toronto to Beijing costs $975. But that ticket is set in stone. I know from first hand experience how expensive that can be to try and change it. The next step up, the flexible ticket is $2680! That is a 275% increase to have a ticket that you can change! That ticket is still in economy class. You don’t get anything special for it, you just get to change it if you need to. Of course you could pay the cancellation insurance for a mere $60.

What happens if there’s a long delay – the kind where you’re on a plane for hours or wind up sleeping at the airport?

In the case of delays caused by Air Canada which are expected to last longer than 4 hours, we will offer a voucher for use at an airport restaurant or at our On Board Café. We will also communicate with you at regular intervals to provide an update on the flight status with the latest, most accurate information available. In the case of an unplanned overnight stay caused by Air Canada, we will provide out-of-town customers with meal vouchers, hotel accommodation and transportation to and from the airport.

So you already get this “Special service” without paying for it. All of this clearly illustrates how badly Canada needs a passenger bill of rights

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GAP – Employing children everywhere.

Monday, October 29th, 2007

The Gap just got caught employing child labour in India. Here is a link because I won’t go into the details of the accusations. Rather I would like to make some suggestions for Marka Hansen, the President of GAP North America.

First off pay for each of these kids to go to school. Obviously the families are dirty poor otherwise they would not have sold their children into slavery. I think that at the very least you owe these children backpay for the horrible situation they find themselves in. And make it the US minimum wage.

So July(when one of the children claim he was purchased) -November is 16 weeks x 80 hours a week x $5.85 = $7,488

Since you can’t very well hand these kids $7,500 and send them on their way, you should set up a boarding school for them.

Secondly, sell the clothes produced by the children and use the money to fight this sort of corruption. Make a public campaign out of it like you did for the (RED) campaign. Stopping business with these companies isn’t going to make the situation better, they are just going to start selling the clothes to someone else.

Thirdly, stop talking about how you”… feel violated and … feel very upset”. No one beat you today with a rubber hose after making you live in squalor and sleep on the roof of the factory you sew clothes in for 16 hours a day.

I know that you are trying to meet the needs of your customers, your employees and your shareholders, but if you want me to shop there or Old Navy or Banana Republic again then you had better pull out the stops on helping these kids. Your obligations go far beyond just “not doing business with people who employ child labour”.

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