Aimee's Blog

Wells Fargo is one of the nine banks that will able to get direct capital injection from the Treasury. This morning CNN Money reports that Wells Fargo will announce “Better than Expected” profits.

What??? Aren’t banks in crisis?

Is our government planning to inject capital into profitable companies?

I am furious with these ignorant bankers taking bets (credit defaults swaps) they can’t cover and getting all of us into this mess. By some estimates, their shadow markets are worth over $500 trillion dollars.

The derivatives market is $531 trillion, up from $106 trillion in 2002 and a relative pittance just two decades ago. Theoretically intended to limit risk and ward off financial problems, the contracts instead have stoked uncertainty and actually spread risk amid doubts about how companies value them. 

THE RECKONING Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy THE NEW YORK TIMES

Graphic: Shadow Derivatives Market 

If this were just about home foreclosures, we could handle in the same as way as we did the housing debacle of the early 1990s. That episode did not freeze the global credit markets.

This crisis is about untested products called ‘Complex Derivatives’ and those who are responsible for creating & using them should be held criminally responsible.

A few years ago, Warren Buffet referred to these derivatives as, “financial weapons of mass destruction.”

I’m livid. It’s time for me to take a step back and count to ten.

Aimee
“Aim for Knowledge”

This is not the first time I’ve written about the Keating Five scandal.  [earlier article]

Please visit a brand new site about Charles Keating, a bailout of banks by U.S. taxpayers, U.S. Senators and Congressional Ethics Charges, oh, and John McMcain at the Center.

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain’s attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee…

[www.KeatingEconomics.com]

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Enter the Contest and create your own map! Impress your family and friends by predicting the election.

Aimee’s Map

Vote! Vote! Vote! Don’t forget to register and vote this November! (Register Online Now)

Is the GOP afraid of Ohio voters with foreclosures?

The DNC and the Obama Campaign have now filed suit in Michigan. Is an Ohio lawsuit next?

Although federal law ensures that most still will be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4, Ohio voters with outdated addresses risk pre-election challenges and trips from polling place to polling place. They’re also more likely to cast provisional ballots that might not be counted.

Franklin County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse didn’t rule out challenges before Nov. 4. He said his party wants “clean, accurate voter lists“…

Read More:
Foreclosed-on voters using old addresses could snag election
By ROBERT VITALE The Columbus Dispatch

Is the GOP Afraid of Voters with Foreclosures? Lawsuit Filed in Michigan
Ask Aimee

Lose your house, lose your vote
By ED BRAYTON The Michigan Messenger

Vote! Vote! Vote! Don’t forget to register and vote this November! (Register Online Now)

ATTN: Members of the U.S. Senate

Are you a U.S. Senator voting today? Read this first and support a filibuster of any bill containing “Telecom Immunity.”

ATTN: Citizens

Keep in mind the far reaching aspects of this measure. Telecom doesn’t mean just phones anymore. If they get away with this now, your computers become at risk in the near future. Sure, say you have nothing to hide or keep private. What about;

• your personal banking records & passwords,
• your business documents & of course,
• your health records?

Make these Telecom firms accountable for not following the clearly stated FISA rules which have both protected us and respected us for 30 years.

This legislation isn’t about privacy for suspected terrorists. It is about allowing the executive branch of our government to skirt the law when it pleases as well as those who blindly follow them.

The current proposal in the Senate (voting today) will allow the Telecom friends of the White House to get away with illegal eavesdropping.

Judge Walker, appointed by former President Bush, wrote a recent opinion finding that “AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.”

Important Articles about the Immunity & FISA:

Definition of FISA

“George Bush’s latest powers, courtesy of the Democratic Congress” Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Judge Walker’s recent Decision

Facts on the Senator Kit Bond’s (R-Mo.) FISA Proposal

“Obama Backing FISA ‘Compromise” Greg Sargent, TPM Election Central

Eff Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston on Immunity Compromise

Active FISA related legislation in the U.S. Senate

Special Thanks to moveon.org for bringing this to my attention.

Aimee
“Aim for Truth”

(Feel free to debate me, just don’t hate me.)

What a cool web site and such an interesting concept.  These folks must be in advertising, well maybe not (otherwise I would have been inundated with ads).

They have locked me in and I will probably be going to their web site every day for a few seconds worth of cute & simple humor.

Whether you care for John McCain or not, johnmccainisnotyournewbicycle.com is a great example of what you can do with a neat idea, domain name, and a quick little web site.

Check it out:

John McCain Is Not Your New Bicycle

Kudos to you at JMINYNB!

Aimee
“Aim for John McCain is not your New Bicycle“ 

Here’s an intriguing article on what might occur if John McCain or Barack Obama become incapacitated prior to their respective political party’s conventions or before the election in November.

read more

Aimee
“Aim for Intrigue” 

Barack Obama and the Pledge of Allegiance

I found this article perusing the MoveOn.org site and thought it was worth a closer review.

10 things you should know about John McCain:

John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.¹

According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”²

His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.³ 

McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”⁴

The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.⁵

He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.⁶

Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”⁷

McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.⁸

McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”⁹

He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.¹⁰