A BANKER A DAY KEEPS THE DEPRESSION AWAY!

In 2008 the global economy crashed and we nearly got sucked into a second Great Depression. This was due in large part to the sub prime mortgage crisis  created by banks lending massive amounts of money to people they knew couldn't possibly pay them back. They blew up the global economy by securitizing that same bad debt into mortgage backed securities which they sold all over the World as AAA grade derivatives. By using credit default swaps, many of these banks  bet  that the derivatives they sold would fail. To be able to securitize mortgages they created an organization call "MERS" which was supposed to keep track of who owns all of these securitized mortgages but in fact destroyed the paper trail for millions of mortgages and has shaken the very foundations of real estate law in the United States. MERS had the added benefit to the Banks of avoiding paying millions in title transfer fees which are owed to local municipalities when the ownership of a property is transferred.

These same banks got a 800 billion dollar bailout in 2008-9 and trillions in nearly zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve to keep the entire financial system from collapsing but they continue to pay massive bonuses and to gamble in the derivatives markets. Now we've found out that many of the largest banks were manipulating the LIBOR which is used to set most of the interest rates in the World but if that wasn't enough one of the world's largest banks, British based HSBC has just agreed to pay a 1.9 billion dollar fine for money laundering. 

My fear is that as long as the big banks are allowed to continue to conduct business as usual we are in danger of having a repeat of 2008. The Dodd Frank Act was a good first step but major restructuring of the big banks maybe necessary. The next big bank that gets in trouble I think should be taken through bankruptcy and broken up. I'd also like to see the an updated version of the old Glass Seagall Act passed by Congress to separate commercial banking from investment banking. So what do you think? Is the Volcker Rule going to be strong enough? Have we adequately dealt with derivatives? Is Congress going to just ignore the problem until it blows up again?

SCROOGE, ALIVE AND LIVING IN CORPORATE AMERICA!

You could have called it a classically Dickens type of day. It was cold, with traces of snow in the grass and flurries swirling in the wind. I had just dropped off a Christmas present and mailed some cards. It seemed like the perfect day for some hot chocolate and a pastry so I walked over to my neighborhood Starbucks. As I approached the building I saw a big banner hanging over the windows. "OPEN ON CHRISTMAS DAY" was all it said but it instantly occurred to me that even Ebenezer Scrooge gave Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off. When I got home I did a little research and it appears that Scrooge is alive and well and living in corporate America. I worked for many years in retail and there use to be only three holidays that everyone got off, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter but apparently that's no longer the case. Is one more shopping day a year going to make that big of deal to a company's bottom line, or stock price, or a CEO's year end bonus?  I think it's time to start pushing back against companies that do this kind of stuff. What do you think? Would things like boycotts work?

THE DARK LORD IS HERE!

Finally, I've published my first comic ebook, Nutzoids: Attack of the Dark Lord. It is colorful, satirical comic mash up of iconic elements from our entertainment culture with politics and the super hero genre. The comic book begins as the Nutzoids, a group of super heroes created out of recycled materials to fulfill a Defense Department contract, are about to participate in their first war game. The brilliant and greedy Dr Strawberry, their creator, has built them out of junk in an effort to maximize his profits. In a cosmic turn of events the law of unintended consequences kicks in trapping Dr Strawberry between the overwhelming power of a truly evil mastermind (The Dark Lord Of The Senate) and the growing independence of his newly created super heroes. Strawberry’s enormous greed has lured them into the Dark Lord's web and now the Nutzoids are about to experience the full power of his wrath. Will they survive and more importantly can they foil the Dark Lord’s evil scheme?

Nutzoids: Attack of the Dark Lord is free for noncommercial use and can be downloaded at this web address:

http://ebrochures.com/ebrochures/eBooks/Humor/NUTZOIDS%3A_ATTACK_OF_THE_DARK_LORD

Just a couple of technical notes. I created this comic book using a flip book publishing program called Desk Top Author and you should be able to view it on your browser or as a download. It is also supposed to work on both PCs and Macs.

What I found when I tested the ebook however, was that it worked well on PCs using Internet Explorer but when I used Google Chrome or Fire Fox or Safari it would not run in the browser window. So if you are using one of those browsers on a PC just download the ebook to your computer and activate it there. If you download the ebook you will also need to download what's called a DNL Reader program, it's also free and only takes a minute.

Macs turned out to be more problematic. I could not get the DNL Reader program to install properly on my Mac. This is likely because I'm not very experienced with Apple products, perhaps you will have better luck. Please let me know how you fare. In any case, I'm working on an iPad version and a PDF version, between the two of them they should run on all Apple products, except maybe iPods and the iPhone. 

So enjoy and let me know what you think.

Help Save Portlandia (real life Portland, Oregon)!

Portland, America's greenest and most sustainable city, is under threat from a consortium of the world's most powerful coal companies. They are proposing to construct five massive coal export terminals in western Washington and Oregon. These terminals will be collectively capable of shipping 140 million tons of coal a year. All of that coal will be transported by train or barge through the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, one of the most beautiful places on Earth and the Portland Metro Area, a city of about two million people. Over a hundred loaded, mile long, coal trains a week will pass through the city with each coal car losing as much as a ton of coal and coal dust along the way. This would quickly transform Portland and the Columbia River Gorge from places of spectacular beauty and livability into a place of polluted water, black smog and unimaginable congestion.

But this is only the beginning of the problems that will be caused by the export of massive amounts of coal through the Pacific Northwest to Asia. Many other towns and cities will be impacted including Seattle. Health and Safety impacts could include prolonged exposure to coal dust, which has been associated with bronchitis, emphysema and toxic heavy metals. Exposure to diesel particulate matter, has been tied to lung inflammation, cancer risk and asthma. Noise pollution, the rumbling and whistles of trains, is not only annoying, but it also has been linked to problems with the nervous system. Delays at rail crossings could hold up ambulances and other emergency responders. Higher rates of train derailments because of the larger number of trains sharing the tracks and coal dust sticking to the tracks is not only dangerous to humans but would likely involve toxic coal spilling into the Columbia River, Puget Sound and other ecologically sensitive areas. Trains already cause forest fires and with the addition of combustible coal dust on the tracks we can expect the number of fires to increase. Not to mention the problems that might be caused in the marine environment by the sinking of a coal barge or ship. Then there are the Global Impacts like climate change and air pollution that can travel back from China over the Pacific Ocean to the Northwest in as little as five days. But what can be done?

The Key is to get the Army Corp of Engineers to do a Programmatic Area Wide Comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for all the proposed terminals, collectively. It is the Corp of Engineers that is tasked with creating an EIS for proposals like the coal export terminals. The problem is that the Corp has the discretion to do very narrow quick Environmental Impact Statements for each terminal proposal separately or an Area wide comprehensive study.  By getting an Area Wide Comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement of all the proposals collectively we will be able to get all the facts on the table and expose the true costs of these proposals before any final permitting decisions are made. The goal of this petition is to get the President to order the Army Corp of Engineers to do a Programmatic Area Wide Comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). It is our further goal to get the President to put a moratorium on the export of coal from the United States to create time for a national debate of the coal export issue.

If you would like to see Portland remain America's greenest and most sustainable city please take the time to join me in signing our online petition to the President at Change.org. Thanks!