a different type of linsanity

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/nyregion/for-food-delivery-workers-speed-tips-and-fear-on-wheels.html?google_editors_picks=true&_r=1&pagewanted=all


an article about a bicycle delivery man in manhattan...pasted some of the parts that stuck out...

"This first delivery of the dinner shift was more than a mile from the restaurant. Arriving, he surged off the bicycle, lashing it to a nearby pole with a heavy chain. A doorman stepped from the gleaming entrance of a prewar building on Park Avenue and pointed him to a side alley.

Mr. Lin hurried down a ramp, past trash bags and through a door into the basement. There, a building worker waited to take him up in a manually operated freight elevator. He exchanged few words with the customer, who handed over $15.50 and a $2 tip.

Deliverymen and women have few defenders or advocates. They lack the cultural aura that once gave bad behavior by bicycle messengers an outlaw appeal. Nobody romanticizes deliverymen — and they are almost all male — as urban cowboys.

“It’s one of those things that New Yorkers just look away from,” said Kevin Bolger, 40, a former owner of a messenger company who has worked as a food deliveryman. “Delivery workers are like dishwashers on wheels.”

He was awake at 8:40 a.m., and his routine was simple: brush teeth, take 10 minutes to dress, compose himself and pray before heading downstairs to buy breakfast: one roll, one milk tea, $2. It was the only money he would spend on food all day.

“A customer returned this food, so I get to eat it,” Mr. Lin said of his dinner, sweet-and-sour chicken with green beans. “Our boss is really good.”

Mr. Lin, who works six days a week with Mondays off, was initially vague about his earnings but eventually said he received a base pay of $30 a day, with additional tips totaling $30 to $50. In a good week, he could pull in nearly $500

He removed a wad of cash from his pocket and counted the day’s haul from nearly 25 miles of travel for more than two dozen deliveries. His helmet still on, he fingered through the folded $20s and wrinkled singles to count about $50 for the day. That would become less than $40 after the tips were pooled and split, he said."

...and some people wonder why occupy wall street started here...this is the other side of nyc...about a woman who wanted to buy a place in manhattan...has a phd in electrical engineering but works as an analyst at a financial firm (as charlie brown would say, "ugh"...one of the many things wrong with today's job market/economy)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/realestate/the-hunt-when-the-math-says-buy.html?pagewanted=all

But “the apartment screamed for renovation,” said Ms. Giannelli, who is from Florence, Italy. The floor “had little hills, it was all up and down.” Her rent rose over time, though not a lot — the increases averaged 1.66 percent per year, she said. She ended up paying $2,450 a month.

Ms. Giannelli, 43, who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and works as an analyst for a bank, started running online calculations. “You can see, based on certain assumptions, if it is more convenient for you to rent or to buy,” she said. “For me, I was a little better off buying because my rent was so expensive.”

Ms. Giannelli’s price began in the $600,000s, and she saw a lot of places that were dark and overpriced. Realizing that finding a nice apartment under $700,000 was going to be difficult, she soon raised her limit.

Last spring, she saw a spacious one-bedroom at the Hamilton, a postwar co-op on East Ninth Street. It was listed at $725,000, with a maintenance fee of almost $1,300 a month, which to her seemed high.

“When I heard there was this blind bid where you have to present your offer and see if it goes through,” she said, “I was very stressed out. You never know whether you offered enough.” With an offer of $715,000, she hadn’t, but she wasn’t terribly disappointed. The apartment sold for $730,000.

Farther uptown, a large one-bedroom in a prewar Art Deco co-op building on 16th Street had a beautiful terrace with a view of Stuyvesant Square. The price, originally $985,000, had been lowered to $925,000 — over Ms. Giannelli’s budget, but maybe it could be negotiated down further.

A few months later, good news arrived: The owner of the unseen twin on East 18th Street would be moving after all. The price was $759,000, with a maintenance fee of almost $1,100. Ms. Giannelli offered $775,000, “just to be on the safe side,” she said.

this is just ridiculous...i'm not blaming the woman...she probably worked hard to get where she is...i'm just pointing out that there is something wrong with the system when someone who is willing to work as hard as mr. lin can make only enough to eat $2 dollars of food a day, and the financial analyst's (what do they do that is so difficult?...electrical engineering i can understand...finance, not so much) main concern is wondering if a million bucks is too much for a tiny apartment...that's my take on the two articles....now on to some side ramblings...

i guess i should be grateful for what i have when compared to what mr. lin goes through, but i am not...it reminds me of a passage i read recently about us being slaves to our consumerism from a korean book titled pavane for a dead princess...it talked about how every time we buy something, every time we reach a certain financial level, the bar goes up...buy a new car, the bar goes up...buy a house, the bar goes up...we are conditioned to want a little more each time we get what we thought we wanted...i have definitely experienced this...i buy a gun...then i want another...i buy a car, and then want something better...assuming i can close on my house, i will probably want something better...there must be a way to just be satisfied with what i have...that's why, sometimes i think if i have nothing but the essentials to live, then i will remove the bar and want no more...i don't think i'm the only one who feels this way since there are more people starting to do things like try to live with only 50 or 100 possessions...i'll have to work harder to not buy so much crap...except books and firefly...those are essential

it's the end of the world as we know it

http://blog.ted.com/2012/02/28/fear-and-the-coming-collapse-of-civilization-paul-gilding-at-ted2012/

ted talk about how the earth can't sustain us at the rate we are producing...it's pretty simple and obvious to scientists since it's a finite world with finite resources...not so obvious to economists, politicians, and business people who want infinite growth for maximum profit...just imagine when china and india reach first world status...the world won't be able to take it...maybe i should forget getting a house and use that money to become a full-time prepper

right left

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/why_conservatives_and_liberals_see_the_world_differently1

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

interesting videos that examine liberals and conservatives

free food

http://www.divethefilm.com/

'merica...the land of excess and waste

Noam Chomsky at Kutztown University - Nov. 21, 2011

lecture by chomsky about the US and the rest of the world...you have to skip to about the 10-12 minute mark for his lecture to start, but it is very interesting to listen to one of the brightest minds in the world break down pretty complex issues...there have been a lot of questions about what the occupy wallstreet movement is, and the question and answer portion of the video has a good explanation about the frustration felt by the general public that led to the occupy wallstreet movement (1 hour mark)...there is also a funny part about him talking about ron paul (1:13 mark)

what percent are you?

ny times posted a little app that lets you see where you fit it...according to this, you need to make $700k/yr to be the top 1% for the whole country...new york is the highest as expected

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?src=tp

taxes

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/estee-lauder-heirs-tax-strategies-typify-advantages-for-wealthy.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp#

As he stood in the opulent marble foyer of a Fifth Avenue mansion late last month, greeting the coterie of prominent guests arriving at his private art gallery, Ronald Lauder was doing more than just being a gracious host.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Neue Galerie, Lauder's museum of Austrian and German art, he exhibited many of the treasures of a personal collection valued at more than $1 billion, including works by Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, and a Gustav Klimt portrait he bought five years ago for $135 million.

Yet for Lauder, an heir to the Estée Lauder fortune whose net worth is estimated at more than $3.1 billion, the evening went beyond social and cultural significance. Just beneath the surface was a shrewd use of the U.S. tax code. By donating his art to his private foundation, Lauder has qualified for deductions worth tens of millions of dollars in federal income taxes over the years, savings that help defray the hundreds of millions he has spent creating one of New York City's cultural gems.

The charitable deductions generated by Lauder — whose donations have aided causes as varied as hospitals and efforts to rebuild Jewish identity in Eastern Europe — are just one facet of a sophisticated tax strategy used to preserve a fortune that Forbes magazine says makes Lauder the world's 362nd-wealthiest person.

From offshore havens to a tax-sheltering stock deal so audacious that Congress later enacted a law forbidding the tactic, Lauder has for decades aggressively taken advantage of tax breaks useful only for the most affluent.

The debate over whether to reduce tax shelters and preferences for the rich is one of the most volatile in Washington and will move to the presidential campaign.

Some billionaires, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have joined Democrats in calling for an elimination of the breaks, saying the current system adds to the budget deficit, contributes to the widening income gap between the richest and the rest of society, and shifts the tax burden onto small businesses and the middle class. Republicans have resisted, saying the tax increases on the wealthy would harm the economy and cost jobs.

Big money, big ideas

The tax burden on the nation's superelite has steadily declined in recent decades, according to a sliver of data released annually by the IRS. The effective federal income-tax rate for the 400 wealthiest taxpayers, representing the top 0.000258 percent, fell from about 30 percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 2008, the most recent data available.

When Lauder ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for mayor of New York and released his tax return to the public, he reported paying 30 percent in total federal, state and city taxes on about $30 million in income in 1988. At the time, his net worth was estimated at nearly $250 million.

Lauder's more recent tax returns remain private, and he declined to make them available for this article.

Lauder, 67, was born into a storied American fortune. His mother, Estée Lauder, the daughter of Eastern European immigrants, began selling homemade beauty creams at a few New York City hair salons in the 1940s and built her product line into a multibillion-dollar global empire.

As the son of a fabulously wealthy fashion icon, Lauder developed aristocratic tastes — and grand aspirations — at an early age. He summered in Vienna as a boy, developing a passion for Austrian art and medieval armor. At 13, he bought his first Egon Schiele work with money from his bar mitzvah. He grew so enthralled by politics as a young man that he told friends he dreamed of becoming the first Jewish president of the United States.

While the family's wealth was created by hard work and ingenuity, it was bolstered by aggressive tax planning, a skill that has become Ronald Lauder's specialty. When Lauder's father, Joseph, died in 1983, relatives fought the IRS for more than a decade to reduce their estate tax. The dispute involved a block of shares bequeathed to the family; the estate valued it at $29 million, while the IRS placed it at $89.5 million. A panel of judges ultimately decided on $50 million, a decision that saved the estate more than $20 million in taxes.

"Truly rich" tax code

Lauder's stake in Estée Lauder Cos., according to regulatory filings, is valued at more than $600 million. Nearly $400 million of that stock is pledged to secure various lines of credit. Many financial planners consider it imprudent for principal shareholders in a company to borrow against their stock. But it remains a popular way for wealthy taxpayers to get cash out of their holdings without selling and paying taxes.

"There's real truth to the idea that the tax code for the 1 percent is different from the tax code for the 99 percent," said Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado. "Any taxpayer lucky enough to have appreciated property is usually put to a choice: cash out and pay some tax, or hold the property and risk the vagaries of the market.

Only the truly rich can use derivatives to get the best of both worlds: lots of cash and very little risk."

In 1976, at age 32, Lauder's donations helped him become the youngest trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He later served as chairman of the Museum of Modern Art and remains an honorary chairman.

He has donated and lent artwork to an assortment of museums. Part of his collection of lavishly decorated ceremonial armor is on display at the Met, in a gallery named for him.

As all art collectors may, Lauder is entitled to deduct the full market value of artworks donated to museums. For years, Lauder availed himself of a quirk in the tax code that allowed donors to take a deduction for donating a portion of an artwork, without handing over the art. That break, known as fractional donation, was eliminated in 2006. The tax code also allows artwork in offices to be deducted as a business expense.

Unlike some wealthy collectors who are criticized for using tax breaks to underwrite private collections that offer little access to the public, Lauder is widely praised for making his artwork a community asset.

Some tax-overhaul advocates say it is unfair that the wealthiest can subsidize their lifestyles using myriad offshore maneuvers and complex accounting strategies.

"It's admirable when people back their charitable impulses up with donations," said Scott Klinger, tax-policy director of the group Business for Shared Prosperity.

"But the tax code shouldn't allow the wealthy the kind of loopholes that let them, essentially, force other taxpayers to underwrite donations to their pet causes."

uc davis

dumbass cops...how can the uc allow this?...these students were just sitting there...nice way to tell future potential students to stay away since the school is willing to pepper spray their customers...i wonder what the response would have been if these were harvard or stanford students...they probably wouldn't protest since those students would be part of the 1%

more ows

damn cops pepper sprayed an 84 year old woman...

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/16/dorli-rainey-octagenarian-pep.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29

http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/occupy-seattle-octogenarian-activist-dorli-rainey-on-being-pepper-sprayed-by-seattle-police-importance-of-activism

occupy wall street

ows ended last night after cops pepper sprayed, beat, lrad'ed protesters...lrad is long range acoustic device which is basically a sound cannon...i spent about an hour watching it on http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution after seeing #ows overflow with tweets...no major networks were covering what was happening, and the only way to get information was through twitter and live video feeds that people at the protest were uploading...whether one agrees with ows and their agenda or lack of, what you can't condone is preventing the press from covering the protest in order to allow cops to beat protesters without worry of it being aired on national tv...it seems like a bad precedent was set, and the same might be done at other "occupy" locations where police brutality is used under a press blackout to kick out the protesters...the fear is that other more traditionally defiant areas might erupt in riots... the bay area could be one of those areas since oakland is already pissed off with what the police did and historically has had a bad relationship with them...critical mass might be building in berkeley after the protesters in oakland moved there (hope they don't trash the campus)...it also signals a change in how we receive news...not through the major media channels like tv and radio where it is filtered, censored, and skewed, but live and direct from the source over the net...one of the main reasons why i keep a twitter account even though i tweet very seldomly

people say that ows has no agenda, but i think that the agenda is an overwhelming frustration with the overall corruption of both financial and government institutions...the people have no other viable outlet to voice their frustration since the media is controlled by those same institutions...protesting in public was the only way to get any message out...also, it is impossible to have a narrow and defined agenda for something as broad as trying to fix financial and government systems that feed off each other's corruption

this shouldn't be about a liberal or conservative agenda...this is to try to stop the rich and powerful from rigging the system to help themselves year after year...i read franzen's freedom recently, and two quotes from it summarize the ows situation very well

“It’s all circling around the same problem of personal liberties,” Walter said. “People came to this country for either money or freedom. If you don’t have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can’t afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.”

“The reason this system can’t be overthrown in this country,” Walter said, “is all about freedom. The reason the free market in Europe is tempered by socialism is that they’re not so hung up on personal liberties there. They also have lower population growth rates, despite comparable income levels. The Europans are all-around more rational, basically. And the conversation about rights in this country isn’t rational. It’s taking place on the level of emotion, and class resentments, which is why the right is so good at exploiting it.” - Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

politics is crap

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57319075/jack-abramoff-the-lobbyists-playbook/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook

Jack Abramoff, the notorious former lobbyist at the center of Washington's biggest corruption scandal in decades, spent more than three years in prison for his crimes. Now a free man, he reveals how he was able to influence politicians and their staffers through generous gifts and job offers. He tells Lesley Stahl the reforms instituted in the wake of his scandal have had little effect.

---

The following is a script of "The Lobbyist's Playbook" which aired on Nov. 6, 2011.

Jack Abramoff may be the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time. He was at the center of a massive scandal of brazen corruption and influence peddling.

As a Republican lobbyist starting in the mid 1990s, he became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients. He was so good at it, he took home $20 million a year.
Jack Abramoff: Inside Capitol corruption

How corrupt is lobbying in Washington, DC? Enough to get "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl angry when she hears how Jack Abramoff bribed and influenced legislators.
It all came crashing down five years ago, when Jack Abramoff pled guilty to corrupting public officials, tax evasion and fraud, and served three and a half years in prison.

Today he's a symbol of how money corrupts Washington. In our interview tonight, he opens up his playbook for the first time.

And explains exactly how he used his clients' money to buy powerful friends and influence legislation.

Jack Abramoff: I was so far into it that I couldn't figure out where right and wrong was. I believed that I was among the top moral people in the business. I was totally blinded by what was going on.

Jack Abramoff was a whiz at influencing legislation and one way he did that was to get his clients, like some Indian tribes, to make substantial campaign contributions to select members of Congress.

Abramoff: As I look back it was effective. It certainly helped the people I was trying to help, both the clients and the Republicans at that time.

Lesley Stahl: But even that, you're now saying, was corrupt?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: Can you quantify how much it costs to corrupt a congressman?

Abramoff: I was actually thinking of writing a book - "The Idiot's Guide to Buying a Congressman" - as a way to put this all down. First, I think most congressmen don't feel they're being bought. Most congressmen, I think, can in their own mind justify the system.

Stahl: Rationalize.

Abramoff: --rationalize it and by the way we wanted as lobbyists for them to feel that way.

Abramoff would provide freebies and gifts - looking for favors for his clients in return. He'd lavish certain congressmen and senators with access to private jets and junkets to the world's great golf destinations like St. Andrews in Scotland. Free meals at his own upscale Washington restaurant and access to the best tickets to all the area's sporting events; including two skyboxes at Washington Redskins games.

Abramoff: I spent over a million dollars a year on tickets to sporting events and concerts and what not at all the venues.

Stahl: A million dollars?

Abramoff: Ya. Ya.

Stahl: For the best seats?

Abramoff: The best seats. I had two people on my staff whose virtual full-time job was booking tickets. We were Ticketmaster for these guys.

Stahl: And the congressman or senator could take his favorite people from his district to the game--

Abramoff: The congressman or senator uh, could take two dozen of his favorite people from their district.

Stahl: Was all that legal?

Ira Rosen is the producer.


Abramoff: We would certainly try to make the activity legal, if we could. At times we didn't care.

But the "best way" to get a congressional office to do his bidding - he says - was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary.

Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, "You know, when you're done working on the Hill, we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us." Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to 'em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they're gonna do. And not only that, they're gonna think of things we can't think of to do.

Neil Volz: Jack Abramoff could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck, that's how persuasive he was.

Neil Volz was one of the staffers Abramoff was talking about. He was chief of staff to Congressman Bob Ney, who as chairman of the House Administration Committee had considerable power to dispense favors. Abramoff targeted Volz and offered him a job.

Stahl: You're the chief of staff of a powerful congressman. And Jack owns you and you haven't even left working for the congressman.

Volz: I have the distinct memory of, you know, negotiating with Jack at a hockey game. So we're, you know, just a few rows back. The crowd's goin' crazy. And Jack and I are havin' a business conversation. And, you know, I'm-- I'm wrestlin' with how much I think I should get paid. And then five minutes later we're-- he's askin' me questions about some clients of his.

Stahl: When you look back was that the corrupting moment?

Volz: I think we were guilty of engaging in a corrupt relationship. So there were several corrupting moments. There isn't just one moment. There were many.

Abramoff: At the end of the day most of the people that I encountered who worked on Capitol Hill wanted to come work on K Street, wanted to be lobbyists.

Stahl: You're telling me this, the genius of figuring out you could own the office by offering a job to the chief of staff, say. I'm having two reactions. One is brilliant. And the other is I'm sick to my stomach.

Abramoff: Right. Evil. Yeah. Terrible.

Stahl: 'Cause it's hurting our country.

Abramoff: Shameful. Absolutely. It's the worst thing that could happen. All parts of the system.

Stahl: I'm mad at you.

Abramoff: I was mad at me--

Stahl: I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

Abramoff: Look I did things and I was involved in the system I should not have been in. I'm ashamed of the fact I was there, the very reason why now I'm speaking about it. And now I'm trying to do something, in recompense, is the fact that I thought it was-- it was wrong of me to do it.


One of the offices he keyed on was that of his good friend, the Majority Leader Tom Delay, eventually hiring his deputy chief of staff and his press secretary, and going into business with Delay's chief of staff.

Stahl: Did you own his staff?

Abramoff: I was as close to his staff as to any staff. I had a very strong personal relationship with a lot of his staff.

Stahl: How many congressional offices did you actually own?

Abramoff: We probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at the time.

Stahl: Come on.

Abramoff: No.

Stahl: A hundred offices?

Abramoff: In those days, I would view that as a failure. Because that leaves 335 offices that we didn't have strong influence in.

Stahl: Did he own you?

Bob Ney: Oh, I don't believe Jack Abramoff owned me. But were we involved in the culture of corruption together? Absolutely.

Former Republican Congressman Bob Ney was ambitious and looked at Abramoff as a way to build alliances with the White House and the majority leader.

Ney: I wanted to be speaker of the House and Jack Abramoff was the beautiful light of day for me to get to the person who I had had some conflicts with, Tom Delay.

Abramoff began inviting Ney on golf trips including one to Scotland and to his restaurant Signatures, where Ney was given food and drinks on the house, a violation of the congressional gift limit laws. Ney says he was hardly the only one crossing the line.

Ney: But I will still tell you, at that point in time, in order to get a drink at Signatures you had to shove White House staffers of George Bush the heck away from the bar. And it was packed with people. And there were members. Now that doesn't mean everybody did everything for Jack. But if you wanna talk about strict interpretation of violation of the-- of-- of the laws of drink and food, Katey bar the door, she was wide open, two shotguns blarin'.

After months of taking handouts, Ney was approached by Neil Volz, his former chief of staff, by then a lobbyist for Abramoff.

Volz: I let you down man and I'm sorry...

Volz asked Ney to insert some language into a reform bill that would give a backdoor license to an Indian casino owned by one of Abramoff's clients. You often hear about lobbyists getting special secret deals for their clients like this. It's an insidious technique that Abramoff perfected.

Abramoff: So what we did was we crafted language that was so obscure, so confusing, so uninformative, but so precise to change the U.S. code.

Stahl: Here's what you tried to get tacked on to this reform bill.

Abramoff: Yeah.

Stahl: "Public law 100-89 is amended by striking section 207 (101 stat. 668, 672)."

Abramoff: Right. Now isn't that obvious what that means? It was perfect. It was perfect.

Stahl: So that's what you tried to get inserted?


Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And that was gonna provide for a casino?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And who on earth is gonna know that?

Abramoff: No one except the chairmen of the committees.

Stahl: Who stuck it in there?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And that's one of the things you used to do?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And it was deliberately written like that?

Abramoff: Precisely. Yes.

Stahl: And that's done a lot?

Abramoff: Members don't read the bills.

Stahl: You didn't even know what it was for?

Ney: Had no idea. And then when we got the written language--

Stahl: Well-- why didn't you know what it was for?

Ney: I didn't-- I didn't care.

Stahl: Oh!

Ney: It was a great big shell game. And I was in the middle of it, whether, you know, knowing or not. I-- I was dumb enough to not say, "What's this thing do?"

Ney would eventually serve 17 months in federal prison, the only congressman who was ever charged in the scandal. But Abramoff says that there were many other members that did his bidding that could have been charged.

Stahl: Was buying favors from lawmakers easy?

Abramoff: I think people are under the impression that the corruption only involves somebody handing over a check and getting a favor. And that's not the case. The corruption, the bribery, call it, because ultimately that's what it is. That's what the whole system is.

Stahl: The whole system's bribery?

Abramoff: In my view. I'm talking about giving a gift to somebody who makes a decision on behalf of the public. At the end of the day, that's really what bribery is. But it is done everyday and it is still being done. The truth is there were very few members who I could even name or could think of who didn't at some level participate in that.

Abramoff prided himself on being a man who did good. He was devoutly religious and exorbitantly charitable and he says he gave away 80 percent of his earnings. When he fell from grace, his reputation was in tatters because it was not just that he had corrupted Congress - it was found he had cheated his clients, like the Indian tribes.

Abramoff: Most of the money I made I gave away, to either communal or charitable causes. So I thought frankly I was one of the most moral lobbyists out there.


Things began to unravel for Abramoff when the Washington Post published a largely unflattering portrait of him in 2004, reporting that he charged his clients 10 times more than any other lobbyist in town.

Abramoff: My first response was, "What's the big deal? I don't understand what this is about. This is what lobbyists do.

What he didn't understand was the part that said he and a former aide to Tom Delay had overbilled four of his Indian casino clients by $45 million.

In the end, he was brought up on federal charges of tax evasion and ripping off Indian tribes. On the day he went to court and pled guilty, Abramoff looked grim. The judge sentenced him to four years.

Stahl: I really think what you were doing was-- was subverting the essence of our system.

Abramoff: Yes. Absolutely right. But our system is flawed and has to be fixed. Human beings populate our system. Human beings are weak.

Stahl: And you preyed on that?

Abramoff: I did. I was one of many who did. I did. And I'm ashamed of that fact.

He was sent to a medium security facility in Cumberland, Maryland. When he was released last June, he began working as an accountant at a kosher pizza parlor. Turns out Jack Abramoff was broke, partly because he is paying off nearly $24 million in restitution to the Indian tribes. Today he lives in his old house in Maryland with his wife, five children and the two doberman pinschers Mrs. Abramoff bought to protect the family while he was away.

After the scandal, Congress instituted a package of reforms, making what Abramoff did - like plying members of Congress with free expensive meals - illegal. But he doesn't see the new reforms as being very effective.

Abramoff: The reform efforts continually are these faux-reform efforts where they'll change, they'll tweak the system. They'll say, "You can have a meal with a congressman if they're standing up, not sitting down."

Stahl: Is that serious? Or are you joking?

Abramoff: Oh no, I'm not joking at all.

Stahl: So, it's okay if you pay for lunch as long as you stand up?

Abramoff: Well, it's actually worse than that. You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak of something like that. But you can take him to a fundraising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fundraiser. And have all the same access and all the same interaction with that congressman. So the people who make the reforms are the people in the system.

Stahl: Could you do the same thing today? I'm asking you whether you think the system's been cleaned up?

Abramoff: Could do the same thing that I? Yeah. No, the system hasn't been cleaned up at all.

Stahl: At all.

Abramoff: There's an arrogance on the part of lobbyists, and certainly there was on the part of me and my team, that no matter what they come up we, we're smarter than they are and we'll overcome it. We'll just find another way through. That's all.

He says the most important thing that needs to be done is to prohibit members of Congress and their staff from ever becoming lobbyists in Washington.

Abramoff: If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself. When you're done, go home. Washington's a dangerous place. Don't hang around.

Former Congressman Bob Ney now works part-time as a radio host.

His former chief of staff Neil Volz is currently working as a night janitor at a Florida restaurant.

And Jack Abramoff has written a memoir called "Capitol Punishment."

© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

finance is crap

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/max_keiser_financial_pornography_and_goldman-sachs/

the video shows how financial institutions make up money out of nothing...

occupy wall street might not have an official cause that they are protesting about, but to me, the protest stems from the frustration with major financial institutions that commit crime on a global scale and then expect bail outs

stem majors

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html

article about why many students fail to follow through with a science, engineering, or math major...simple answer is that it's pretty difficult, and students give up after a year or two...however, i think that has always been the case, and it is well known that you have weeder classes early on so that students who can't take the work or find out that they don't like it can switch majors before it is too late...the article also mentions about having x number of engineers and scientists by a certain year, but the problem isn't so much that the students aren't completing these majors...the problem is that many these students who get stem degrees are going into other fields like finance, because the money is better...if they are serious about getting more people interested in becoming engineers and scientists, then start paying them investment banker level salaries...i'm pretty sure that engineers and scientists have had a much greater positive impact on the advancement of the human race than financiers...example...einstein vs jp morgan...genius who figured out brownian motion, relativity, and photoelectric effect vs greedy robber baron...the other issue is that with most stem jobs, an undergraduate degree is usually not enough and need to get at least a masters

the fall

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/niall-ferguson-how-american-civilization-can-avoid-collapse.html

ammurrica is losing its edge

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html?sid=ST2008021801642

damn lawyers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/what-the-costumes-reveal.html?_r=4

On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party.The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The party is the firm’s big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can’t tell you how people dressed for this year’s party, but I can tell you about last year’s.

That’s because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year’s party. In an e-mail, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners — invariably poor and down on their luck — that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against.

When we spoke later, she added that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm’s mind-set. “There is this really cavalier attitude,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.” Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose. I told her I wanted to post the photos on The Times’s Web site so that readers could see them. She agreed, but asked to remain anonymous because she said she fears retaliation.

Let me describe a few of the photos. In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: “Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie.” The reference is to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum — and had posteda YouTube video denouncing the firm’s foreclosure practices. “She was a thorn in their side,” said my source.

A third photograph shows a corner of Baum’s office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed homes. Another shows a sign that reads, “Baum Estates” — needless to say, it’s also full of foreclosed houses. Most of the other pictures show either mock homeless camps or mock foreclosure signs — or both. My source told me that not every Baum department used the party to make fun of the troubled homeowners they made their living suing. But some clearly did. The adjective she’d used when she sent them to me — “appalling” — struck me as exactly right.

These pictures are hardly the first piece of evidence that the Baum firm treats homeowners shabbily — or that it uses dubious legal practices to do so. It is under investigation by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. It recently agreed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the firm had “filed misleading pleadings, affidavits, and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts in New York.” (In the press release announcing the settlement, Baum acknowledged only that “it occasionally made inadvertent errors.”)

MFY Legal Services, which defends homeowners, and Harwood Feffer, a large class-action firm, have filed a class-action suit claiming that Steven J. Baum has consistently failed to file certain papers that are necessary to allow for a state-mandated settlement conference that can lead to a modification. Judge Arthur Schack of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn once described Baum’s foreclosure filings as “operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe.” (My source told me that one Baum employee dressed up as Judge Schack at a previous Halloween party.)

I saw the firm operate up close when I wrote several columns about Lilla Roberts, a 73-year-old homeowner who had spent three years in foreclosure hell. Although she had a steady income and was a good candidate for a modification, the Baum firm treated her mercilessly.

When I called a press spokesman for Steven J. Baum to ask about the photographs, he sent me a statement a few hours later. “It has been suggested that some employees dress in ... attire that mocks or attempts to belittle the plight of those who have lost their homes,” the statement read. “Nothing could be further from the truth.” It described this column as “another attempt by The New York Times to attack our firm and our work.”

I encourage you to look at the photographs with this column on the Web. Then judge for yourself the veracity of Steven J. Baum’s denial

gen x

http://gizmodo.com/5851062/generation-x-is-sick-of-your-bullshit


Earlier generations have weathered recessions, of course; this stall we're in has the look of something nastier. Social Security and Medicare are going to be diminished, at best. Hours worked are up even as hiring staggers along: Blood from a stone looks to be the normal order of things "going forward," to borrow the business-speak. Economists are warning that even when the economy recuperates, full employment will be lower and growth will be slower-a sad little rhyme that adds up to something decidedly ­unpoetic. A majority of Americans say, for the first time ever, that this generation will not be better off than its parents. —New York Magazine

Generation X is sick of your bullshit.

The first generation to do worse than its parents? Please. Been there. Generation X was told that so many times that it can't even read those words without hearing Winona Ryder's voice in its heads. Or maybe it's Ethan Hawke's. Possibly Bridget Fonda's. Generation X is getting older, and can't remember those movies so well anymore. In retrospect, maybe they weren't very good to begin with.

But Generation X is tired of your sense of entitlement. Generation X also graduated during a recession. It had even shittier jobs, and actually had to pay for its own music. (At least, when music mattered most to it.) Generation X is used to being fucked over. It lost its meager savings in the dot-com bust. Then came George Bush, and 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Generation X bore the brunt of all that. And then came the housing crisis.

Generation X wasn't surprised. Generation X kind of expected it.

Generation X is a journeyman. It didn't invent hip hop, or punk rock, or even electronica (it's pretty sure those dudes in Kraftwerk are boomers) but it perfected all of them, and made them its own. It didn't invent the Web, but it largely built the damn thing. Generation X gave you Google and Twitter and blogging; Run DMC and Radiohead and Nirvana and Notorious B.I.G. Not that it gets any credit.

But that's okay. Generation X is used to being ignored, stuffed between two much larger, much more vocal, demographics. But whatever! Generation X is self-sufficient. It was a latchkey child. Its parents were too busy fulfilling their own personal ambitions to notice any of its trophies-which were admittedly few and far between because they were only awarded for victories, not participation.

In fairness, Generation X could use a better spokesperson. Barack Obama is just a little too senior to count among its own, and it has debts older than Mark Zuckerberg. Generation X hasn't had a real voice since Kurt Cobain blew his brains out, Tupac was murdered, Jeff Mangum went crazy, David Foster Wallace hung himself, Jeff Buckley drowned, River Phoenix overdosed, Elliott Smith stabbed himself (twice) in the heart, Axl got fat.

Generation X is beyond all that bullshit now. It quit smoking and doing coke a long time ago. It has blood pressure issues and is heavier than it would like to be. It might still take some ecstasy, if it knew where to get some. But probably not. Generation X has to be up really early tomorrow morning.

Generation X is tired.

It's a parent now, and there's always so damn much to do. Generation X wishes it had better health insurance and a deeper savings account. It wonders where its 30s went. It wonders if it still has time to catch up.

Right now, Generation X just wants a beer and to be left alone. It just wants to sit here quietly and think for a minute. Can you just do that, okay? It knows that you are so very special and so very numerous, but can you just leave it alone? Just for a little bit? Just long enough to sneak one last fucking cigarette? No?

Whatever. It's cool.

Generation X is used to disappointments. Generation X knows you didn't even read the whole thing. It doesn't want or expect your reblogs; it picked the wrong platform.

Generation X should have posted this to LiveJournal.

rant

http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/08/09/dylan-ratigan-mad-as-hell-his-epic-network-moment/

finally someone who understands that both sides are screwing this country up...

market crash

http://sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com/

a blog that posts pics of sad traders...i stopped by the nyse when i was in new york...the downfall of america...i can't distinguish the stock exchange from gambling

the bane of america

nyc

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/07/10/nyregion/20110710VISUALss.html

pictures of the cheapest housing available in manhattan...not what comes to mind normally when you think of nyc

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-11-03/news/the-strangest-landlord-tenant-relationship-in-town/

greatness of america

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/nc-man-allegedly-robs-bank-health-care-jail/story?id=13887040

man robs a bank for 1 dollar so that he can go to jail to get medical care