Dad died a month ago

I claim a slice of hell as well as heaven by knowing that I was not the daughter I wanted to be to this man.

It's taken some time and a lot of physical movement and work just for the sake of moving to get out of my funereal rut but it is time to post this and get on with it.  There is so much more to do now that life has taken many more educational turns for me.

No need for mea culpa if action can be taken to combat the guilt and pain of not trying.  It is time to try.

Warning shot & CSPAN & CurrentTV is the BEST!

With the world financial system tanking it only takes a second for someone to think of a way to make money on it. phil gramm is on CSPAN right now, speaking on a panel for the american enterprise institue (aei) and it is amazing to witness the total and somewhat deranged denial in every explanation he has for what has happened after he repealed the glass/steagall act. It is hard to believe this statement, re: glass/steagall, "I don't think a factual case was made for the law to begin with" and re: gramm/leach/bliley, "Swaps are not futures, but it didn't deregulate the swaps." This statement is just a joke, surely, "Everything we do will have a consequence."

As the world tanks, the insane get public statements at teh aei.

Deregulation would work if investors and investment bankers were honest. Darn, there goes capitalism. Oh wait, if everyone has "skin" in the game, it plays out better, guess we have to see how that works if we still allow everything to be opaque. Trust is the big issue for me. Anybody asks, for now, it's about as much safety as you can buy with what little you have left and plan for inflation and many years of privation.

Just now, I saw a clip on currenttv of O visiting the white house press room. He has a smile, he's saying he has respect, he wants respect and that their questions WILL get answered! The camera's are flashing, the recorders are on, the video rolls in disbelief. Unbelievable. the reporters seems pretty well flustered too. Someone yells as he's leaving their modest digs, "Thanks you, Mr. President." It is the single most disparate image I have seen yet. Simply unbelievable. Let's hope the bozo press asks the right questions this time.

Money, money, money, money

There is no way to trust anything about money in this system.  Native banks can lead the way by being cleaned out of it's own bad strategies and building enough trust to become the primary ratings agencies for the New Economy.  Someone outside of the current money is power structure has to be the defacto trustee.  Our advantage is that we have been screwed already and in setting up that investigation, we can simply slide into being the go-to regulator of the cheaters and honest investors.  A person should be able to make a bet with their own money and win or lose based on their own decisions, not have it be simply stoled from them with a handshake and a smile.  If anyone knows how much this hurts, it's the pre-contact Nii Mii Puu.

Come to think of it, we'd probably just call money management what it is, a big stickgame, but at least in our system, it's always a fifty-fifty bet and you choose, no spreads.  

Interest rates are going to be low for three years at least, inflation seems to be slowing but as more business busts and people lose income, inflation kicks in just because it knows it can.  We are PRINTING money, after all.  People who are still in business have to make money somehow, and with gas going up in the near future, ummm, we're screwed.

wapo comments always get me

"PreAmeriKKKan wrote:
if you are from an indigenous group and you have seen invaders come and kill your relatives and destroy your home, you tend to want the man responsible to be aware that at least one person objects. i wish i could have thrown an arrow at andrew jackson, for example."

the above comment was in response to seeing video of our infamous 43rd preznit almost getting beaned by a pair of thrown wingtips.

Split-strike strategy?!

Reading a Barron's article on Bernie Madoff's so-called trading strategy and since i know little to nothing about stock trading, i'm interested to find out how cheaters cheat, it is amazing.

Jargon seems to be the one thing that enables people to fuck around with other people's heads and steal from them at the same time.  Here's what the Barron's writer, Erin E. Arvedlund, wrote about Madoff and the strategy: 

"A Madoff hedge-fund offering memorandums describes his strategy this way: "Typically, a position will consist of the ownership of 30-35 S&P 100 stocks, most correlated to that index, the sale of out-of-the-money calls on the index and the purchase of out-of-the-money puts on the index. The sale of the calls is designed to increase the rate of return, while allowing upward movement of the stock portfolio to the strike price of the calls. The puts, funded in large part by the sale of the calls, limit the portfolio's downside."

Among options traders, that's known as the "split-strike conversion" strategy. In layman's terms, it means Madoff invests primarily in the largest stocks in the S&P 100 index -- names like General Electric ,
Intel and Coca-Cola . At the same time, he buys and sells options against those stocks. For example, Madoff might purchase shares of GE and sell a call option on a comparable number of shares -- that is, an option to buy the shares at a fixed price at a future date. At the same time, he would buy a put option on the stock, which gives him the right to sell shares at a fixed price at a future date.

The strategy, in effect, creates a boundary on a stock, limiting its upside while at the same time protecting against a sharp decline in the share price. When done correctly, this so-called market-neutral strategy produces positive returns no matter which way the market goes." 

HolyFS!  what does this mean?!  the only thing i've ever had is visions of the future and right now i see the dow at 5000, 25% unemployment, no doubt. don't ask me how and why i have any credibility to predict this, but considering how badly "professionals" have done "playing" the market, i don't think i will be far off. HolyFS!!  go to plan b.

Ecotopia

From NYTimes article, "The Book That Foretold Portland" (of "Ecotopia" by Earnest Callenbach):

"Mr. Callenbach hopes the book will resonate among the greening edges of an evangelical movement. But the novel’s relatively free sex and liberal politics may limit that readership. Susanna Hecht, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, sees it as a counterpoint to Thoreau’s more austere “Walden.”

“ ‘Walden’ is very Protestant,” she said. “This is pagan, with a Zen relationship to nature.”

But to Mr. Callenbach and many of his fans, “Ecotopia” is a blueprint for the future.

“It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now,” he said. “But without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center.”

“And we’d better get ready,” he added. “We need to know where we’d like to go.”

As a Eugene Native, I remember feeling that way about the Northwest, especially after reading this book and histories of our famiy before contact.  We do have a huge opportunity in front of us now that everything we thought was "true" is exposed for what it is, a simple experiment that we have to let play through and learn from.  Our major problem is that we do not learn well.  We may be forced to from now on, so my heart and mind is open to creating a place where we can go, is yours?

June 25th - Giveaway Day

Religion does not belong in government, at all.  Our state has allowed people to make religious public relations campaigns commonplace in our state buildings by placing crosses, xmas trees, menorahs and atheists placards in the lobby of our capital.  Same as with the federal faith based initiatives, it has got to stop.

Or, we could go with an alternative "holiday", Giveaway Day, to encourage people to giveaway to friends and family or the community on June 25th, and do it in celebration of a simple life where your worth is valued more by what you giveaway, rather than what you keep.  It would be a way to distribute wealth in a more equitable way and teach earth sustainability with a greener consumer ethic.

If we have to have a federal holiday for a religious purpose, we have to have one that is not.  Or neither, there is no other way to prove that we are a nation based on democratic principals and whats left of our constitution.