Where's the Outrage?

Median income according to latest statistics is approximately $50,000 per year. (This statistic can vary depending upon how the data is collected and analyzed.) No matter how you slice up the information, the five fastest growing occupations are barely enough to put food on the table, gas in your car and keep the lights on. Only one occupation, registered nurse, has an average starting salary that is anywhere near the median income (about $60,000 by my calculations). The rest of these are far below the median.

From EPI:

While a lack of jobs is arguably the biggest problem facing the labor market, another major concern is the quality of the jobs that are being created. The Figure presents the five fastest growing occupations between 2006 and 2009 and shows that all but one of them pays below the median wage in May 2009 of $15.95 an hour.  The two fastest-growing occupations, home health care and food preparation and serving, pay closer to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour than the median wage. A food preparation worker’s typical wage of $8.28 an hour would earn an annual salary of $16,560, based on a typical 2,000-hour work year: That salary is just below the 2009 poverty threshold for a family of three. Warehouse stock clerks, another fast-growing occupation, would earn slightly more than $20,000 per year.

In addition, three of the five fastest growing occupations – home health aide, medical assistant and registered nurse — are in the health care industry. While registered nurses earn a median wage of more than $30 an hour, the disproportionate growth in health care jobs points to a lack of robust job growth across the labor market. The most recent jobs data show that every industry – with the exception of health care, education, and the government – has fewer jobs today than before the recession began, strong evidence that demand is weak across the entire economy.

Tags: Business, Economy by ecthompson md
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Times-Picayune

I would like to say that I will come up with something brilliant never before said about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. I wish that were true. There have been endless books investigating the Hurricane Katrina tragedy from multiple angles. David Brinkley’s book, the Great Deluge, maybe the most complete. New Orleans’s own daily newspaper, the Times Picayune, has done a magnificent job at relentlessly chasing down details. Finally, Spike Lee’s documentary, When the Levees Broke, personalizes some of the pain and suffering.

Before Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Georges hit the Gulf Coast in 1998 and narrowly missed New Orleans. This hurricane revealed several problems. City, state and federal officials met in 1999 in order to plan an adequate response. The state of Louisiana formally wrote FEMA and requested a planning exercise in August of 2000. It took four years before the exercise actually happened. In July 2004, Hurricane Pam began. There were over 300 participants in this five-day exercise. Hurricane Pam, by all accounts, was a realistic category three hurricane with sustained winds up to 120 mph. Using simulations from the National Weather Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers, the participants simulated over 20 inches of rain falling in parts of southern Louisiana. The storm surge topped the levees. The simulation assumed that over 300,000 people could not get out of the city in spite of mandatory evacuations. They also assumed that over half million buildings would’ve been destroyed. Over 100,000 people were injured and 60,000 killed. This was serious.

After the simulation, an after action report was filed. The most remarkable thing about this after action report is the number of areas where the letters TBA (to be announced) up here in the report. The report is incomplete. Large responsibilities have not been decided. In football, there is a saying, “You play like you practice.” In this case, the simulation showed huge gaps in our response. In reality, there is huge gaps in our response. In my opinion, any serious look at Katrina must start with a look at Hurricane Pam and the inter-agency problems that Pam revealed.

Tags: Bush Administration, Katrina by ecthompson md
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Really? Or has he infiltrated the clubhouses so much that he is everywhere? I know several conservatives that “never listen,” but they all know the things that he has said.

I have been blogging for over five years. I have thousands of posts. I would be surprised if you could find more than 10 posts on Rush. Maybe I have another 10 on Beck. For awhile I would listen to O’Reilly’s talking points memo and comment on a weekly basis, but it got boring.

In order to get attention you need to act a fool in today’s world. So Beck will say that Obama doesn’t like White society, Dr. Laura will use the N-word over and over again and Rush will refer to Obama as a half-frican. Their ratings will spike as liberals go crazy that anyone would say anything so crazy. Then the cycle will repeat over and over again.

Liberals have shied away from this type of ratings grabber which is why Air America went down in flames – several times. It was boring. Olbermann uses his Worst Person in the World segment as a substitute for what the right does. It has worked pretty well. None of the other shows have anything that is close to Olbermann’s ability to grab attention.

We have lost the ability to debate in this country. Half of us have our minds made up before the debate starts. At first there is some data presented on both sides. There may even be a third or fourth side of the debate at the beginning. Then the name calling starts as it becomes clear that neither side will give an inch. The third or fourth sides of the debate are now dropped. Finally, there have to be a couple of references to our forefathers, the Constitution and patriotism. There is no resolution to the issue and we move on to the next topic.

This is the sad state of political debate in our country.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Media, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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There are several nationally known musicians associated with New Orleans, including Dr. John.

Artist: Dr. John
Tune: Goin’ Back to New Orleans

Tags: Music by ecthompson md
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Traveling back home today. I’m going to miss Glenn Beck’s Washington party. From the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Mr. Beck is going to do something. Now, I have know idea what Beck is going to say. I have no idea if God will speak through him to the American people.

I do have an idea of what Beck will not say. He will not talk about how Martin Luther King discussed Black children graduating high school reading at 8th or 9th grade level. He will not talk about the high rate of unemployment and under-employment in the Black community. (the other America speech)

I’m positive that Glenn Beck will not talk about why Dr. King was in Memphis before his death. He was there to support the garbage workers’ strike. They needed better pay and better working conditions. I don’t think that Beck will touch that.

Martin Luther King stood up for the poor and those who were not able to influence the politic process. He spoke out against the Vietnam war and voter suppression. I don’t suspect that Beck will cover any of the topics that MLK covered.

I don’t think that he will have anything to say on jobs and corporate privilege. I don’t think that he is worried about the millions of people living in the US without healthcare. I don’t think that he will say anything about green energy and getting off of our oil dependence. I don’t think that he will have much to say about the BP oil spill or the recovery on the gulf coast. I don’t think that he will make any attempt at bringing the country together. He will continue to do what has made him popular. He will divide America with inflammatory rhetoric. He will talk about taking America back. He will attack Obama and liberals. The only question that I have is will he cry and why should America care?

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
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We are all focusing on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as we remember Hurricane Katrina. Let me start by saying I love NOLA. I love the people and the culture. I started blogging just a couple months before Katrina. I knew that the levees had broken hours before MSN reported it because of discussion boards on the Internet.

I took this picture in 9th ward 3 years ago.

9th ward

So what are the lessons?

• there should be no political considerations when doling out aid
• experts are experts for a reason. They should be in charge of planning and resource management.
• we as Americans do a bad job of planning for future problems. Money was consistently diverted from the levees into projects that would give politicians “more to run on.”
• there is no excuse … We must get help to everyone within 48 hrs. There is no excuse.
• this could happen again.

What are your thoughts? What lessons have you learned?

From HuffPo (written by Janet Napolitano):

We’ve also made tremendous progress since Katrina and Rita in improving our country’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from major disasters of all kinds.

An example of this progress is the recovery efforts this summer following the worst flooding in more than a century in Nashville, Tenn. These floods took the lives of more than 30 individuals, devastated communities, and threatened the safety and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of residents. Despite this historic damage, our swift and effective response demonstrated what a difference preparation, coordination between federal, state, and local governments, and the quick deployment of resources to local communities can make.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, played a key role in the government’s response. But as our FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate would be the first to say, preparing for — and responding to — disasters truly is a shared responsibility. While we continue to strengthen and streamline efforts to prepare for disasters at the federal level, citizens, families, communities, faith organizations, and businesses all have an important role to play in our collective response to emergencies.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Katrina by ecthompson md
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If you haven’t seen Spike Lee’s new documentary on New Orleans, you haven’t seen a Spike Lee documentary on New Orleans. Yes, I know that his first documentary was great, powerful, in-your-face, raw, truthful, emotional and more. This is all that and more. The HBO special, If God is will and da creek don’t raise, is Lee’s latest look at New Orleans and the Gulf five years after Katrina. This is must-see TV.

So, we placed the blame for the slow government response on Michael Brown, the hapless head of FEMA at the time. New documents appear to show that Michael Chertoff, head of Homeland Security, may have been the man with the deer in the headlights look in his eyes.

The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.

Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the “principal federal official” in charge of the storm.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina’s early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff — not Brown — was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government’s blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn’t shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department. (more…)

Tags: Katrina by ecthompson md
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Michael Enright From NYT

I don’t pretend to understand what was going on in Michael Enright’s head. The details of this terrible act are coming to light. I hope that everyone will wait and listen to all of the evidence before condemning Mr. Enright.

It was the first fare of the cabdriver’s shift. A young man hailed him at the corner of Second Avenue and East 24th Street, wanting to go to 42nd and Second. It was 6 p.m. on Tuesday; the traffic was dense.

Once the fare, Michael Enright, a 21-year-old film student who had been recently trailing Marines in Afghanistan, settled in the back, he started asking friendly enough questions: Where was the driver from? Was he Muslim?

The driver, Ahmed H. Sharif, 44, said he was from Bangladesh, and yes he was Muslim.

Mr. Enright said, “Salaam aleikum,” the Arabic greeting “Peace be upon you.”

“How’s your Ramadan going?” Mr. Enright asked, Mr. Sharif said.

He told him it was going fine. Then, he said, Mr. Enright began making fun of the rituals of Ramadan, and Mr. Sharif sensed this cab ride might not be like any other.

From NYT:

“So I stopped talking to him,” Mr. Sharif said. “He stopped talking, too.”

As the cab inched up Third Avenue and reached 39th Street, Mr. Sharif said in a phone interview, Mr. Enright suddenly began cursing at him and shouting “This is the checkpoint” and “I have to bring you down.” He said he told him he had to bring the king of Saudi Arabia to the checkpoint.

“He was talking like he was a soldier,” Mr. Sharif said.

He withdrew a Leatherman knife, Mr. Sharif said, and, reaching through the opening in the plastic divider, slashed Mr. Sharif’s throat. When Mr. Sharif turned, he said, Mr. Enright stabbed him in his face, on his arm and on his thumbs.

Mr. Sharif said he told him: “I beg of you, don’t kill me. I worked so hard, I have a family.” (more…)

Tags: 9-11, Religion by ecthompson md
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With ugly economic news raining down on us like a monsoon, I think it is important to ask if the stimulus helped. Was it worth it?

First the badness:

Sales of newly built homes dropped to their lowest level since the government started tracking the numbers more than four decades ago, with demand for home purchases down in all four regions of the country.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that new homes sold in July at an annual rate of 276,000, down 12.4 percent from June and down 32.4 percent compared with the same time last year.

First, I would like to say what everyone knows. The housing sector was overbuilt. There are too many houses that are sitting empty now. New houses are not going to sell with so many old houses sitting idle. Loans for new houses are going to be harder to get and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The housing sector is not going to be our economic engine in the next decade. It can’t be.

Unfortunately, it is hard to cheer up a man who is watching his house burn by reminding him that at least he has your health. The Stimulus has saved millions of jobs. The American auto industry is selling cars again. Mark Zandi, chief economist for The Economist, stated:

Former McCain economic adviser, and longtime stimulus defender, Mark Zandi took issue today with House Minority Leader John Boehner’s criticisms of President Obama’s economic policies, and with multiple GOP calls for Obama’s top economic advisers to resign.

“I think we’d be in a measurably worse place if not for the stimulus,” Zandi said at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning. “If we had not had the stimulus…we’d have fewer jobs today than we actually have.”

Zandi was responding to Boehner’s contention yesterday that stimulus spending “has gotten us nowhere.” Asked whether he agreed with Boehner, Zandi said “no.”

“Without the stimulus spending,” Zandi insisted, “instead of a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, we’d have an 11.5 percent unemployment rate.”

In addressing questions about the size of the stimulus he stated:

“I would have made it larger,” Zandi said. “I think we underestimated — significantly underestimated — the severity of the situation that we were in and still are in. And that that would have argued for a larger stimulus package.”

Tags: Economy by ecthompson md
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I’m on the road. Going to give a couple of lectures on trauma.

Hopefully I’ll be able post something thoughtful this evening.

Tags: Blogging issues by ecthompson md
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Back in April I wrote about the failure of Countrywide and Indy Mac and Washington Mutual. At the time I was accused of glossing over Senator Chuck Schumer’s role in bringing down Indy Mac and the whole financial industry. The real story is long and more complex than simply Chuckie did it.  It was in late June 2008 when Chuck Schumer was making noise about Indy Mac. But what about months earlier? What about the little-known analyst who is stuck in the bowels of CIBC World Market and had the nerve to write the truth? She was specifically writing about Citigroup, but could’ve been writing about any of the large Wall Street firms. Their problems were similar.

She wrote:

Our thesis is simple. We believe in the near term, Citigroup will need to raise over $30 billion in capital through either assets sales, a dividend cut, a capital raise or a combination thereof. We believe such a catalyst will pressure the stock significantly lower and accordingly downgrade to sector underperformer from sector performer as of October 31.

Citigroup stock opened at $42 per share on October 29, 2007. This was a Monday. By Friday, after Meredith Whitney released her stock analysis, the stock dropped to $38 a share. Within weeks the stock was trading at $30 a share. Nearly a third of its value had been lost. The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 350 points over $369 billion were lost.

Citigroup is currently a shadow of its former self. Its stock price and selling somewhere around $3.50. Its CEO, Chuck Prince resigned less than a week later. Interestingly, Prince took the CEO position in 2003. He was being paid $25 million a year and Citigroup stock did nothing besides lose value. So, for doing less than nothing, he got a severance package worth $140.1 million.

So, I guess, this puts Indy Mac into a little bit better perspective. Stanley O’Neal, CEO of Merrill Lynch, resigned in October of 2007 after reporting the largest loss in ML history. Citigroup gets called out by Meredith Whitney in late October 2007. They actually had to slash their dividend two weeks after her announcement, just as her analysis predicted. Meredith Whitney is now looking like a guru on Wall Street. The underlying problems of Wall Street, though, should have been seen by everybody. Everybody jumped into the pool of toxic mortgage derivatives. Whether Meredith Whitney was lucky or not isn’t the point. She was right more times than not in 2007 and 2008. She had the strength and the courage to stand up and say, “The Emperor has no clothes.” For this she should be applauded.

Tags: Economy by ecthompson md
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The Great Dexter Gordon. What a sound.

Artist: Dexter Gordon
Tune: What’s New

Tags: Music by ecthompson md
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In the late 1970s, Sonny and Cher sang this cute tune. They were singing to each other. Now our Senators are singing the same song to Wall Street. Brown-Kaufman was a reasonable proposal. It limited the size of banks to a percentage of our GDP. The proposal went down in flames. Why? Wouldn’t limiting bank size actually help the middle class? I thought that’s what Congress wanted to do… help the middle class?

Simon Johnson has more:

The Brown-Kaufman SAFE Banking Amendment proposed a hard size cap on our largest banks, limiting their assets to a very small fraction of the size of our economy.  The premise was simple – and could fit on a bumper sticker (or in a campaign flyer for November) – “too big to fail” is too big to exist.

But this proposal to modify the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill failed in the Senate in early May, by a vote of 33-61, with 27 Democrats voting against the idea.  Since that time, Democratic supporters have been asking their representatives the obvious question: Why did you vote against Brown-Kaufman?

Interestingly, no senators yet have replied – at least on the record – that the power of the megabanks was too great to be overcome.  Instead, there are three main arguments going the rounds.

First, some argue that the Brown-Kaufman would by itself not have completely solved all the problems that can cause our financial system to meltdown.  As one senator put it in a recent letter, “[Brown-Kaufman] would not solve the problem of systemic risk and systemically important institutions in a comprehensive manner.” [Read more →]

Tags: Economy by ecthompson md
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Much has been written (most of it worthless) on the controversy over the Cordora House in New York. Build or no build. I have written on it. I’m positive that I haven’t changed anyone’s mind.

Matthew Alexander adds his voice to chorus.

The Cordoba House would be a powerful symbol of U.S. tolerance and freedom that will stand in direct contradiction to al Qaeda’s narrative that Americans hate Muslims. As a symbol, its construction demonstrates that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and that Muslims are welcome in America. It communicates a message of moderation that stands in stark contrast to al Qaeda’s bankrupt ideology.

As I discovered as a high-level interrogator of al Qaeda members in Iraq, symbols like this matter. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the policy of torture and abuse handed al Qaeda its number one recruiting tool. Those who think al Qaeda will not be able to spin this controversy to their advantage are disastrously mistaken — but it can be a victory for America as well.

The political uproar over the Cordoba project, and in particular the use of harmful, bigoted rhetoric by some opportunists, leaves America facing a choice. It can project one of two symbols: One of integration, acceptance and positive affirmation of American values; or one of intolerance, rejection, and animosity. The former will work to undermine al Qaeda as part of a long-term strategy to defeat them. The latter will bolster Islamic extremists’ arguments that America is an intolerant country hell-bent on war with Islam, aid recruitment efforts and add support for more terrorist attacks.

The choice is obvious. Let’s build the Cordoba House.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Religion by ecthompson md
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Free speech doesn’t mean that you can say anything you want on the radio. Who is she trying to fool?

From C&L:

As many of you may recall, during the 2008 presidential election, Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin made the ridiculous claim that her first amendment rights were being violated because people were criticizing her hateful and negative rhetoric.

It seems that everyone’s favorite relationship shrink Dr. Laura Schlessinger has pulled a page from Palin’s playbook. The good doctor has decided, after having an epic, racist on-air meltdown, that she will quit her job as a radio show host when her contract expires (at least she’s finishing out her term) and is now playing the victim. Dr. Laura claims that she’s been stripped of her first amendment rights because people like the fine folks at Media Matters, dared to re-air her nasty little rant, and citizens complained to her sponsors.

Dr. Laura stated: I’m here to say that my contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year, and I’ve made the decision not to do radio anymore. The reason is, I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart, and what I think is helpful and useful, without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates and attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that. I’m not retiring. I’m not quitting. I feel energized, actually — stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.

Dr. Schlessinger goes on to say that she’s not giving up her career, just her radio show. She still wants to give lectures and have the opportunity to “say what’s on her mind and in her heart.” Wow, if things like “Don’t NAACP ME!” and NI**ER, NI**ER, NI**GER are what’s in this woman’s heart, she needs some very expensive therapy.

Shall we take bets on how long it takes before she becomes a contributor on Fox News, or gets her own show?

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
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Bobby Thomson

The shot that was heard around the world. How do we know about it? This was a cool article (My mom would have pressed the wrong button on the tape recorder, I promise):

When I was a little boy, my dad and I would sit on the floor next to his old reel-to-reel tape deck, taking turns talking into it and playing our voices back — the same reel-to-reel he unwittingly used to gain his 15 minutes of fame.

It was October 3, 1951, when Larry Goldberg, a 26-year-old travel agent living with his parents in Brooklyn, set up the deck next to a radio before setting off to work in Manhattan.

He asked his mom to record the 9th inning of the third game of the Brooklyn Dodgers-New York Giants playoffs.

What he and my grandmother captured turned out to be the only known recording at the time of Russ Hodges’ famous call of Bobby Thomson’s game-winning home run, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” (more…)

Tags: Sports by ecthompson md
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Some words of wisdom from someone who lost his wife in the 9/11 attacks.

I remember taking calculus as a senior in high school. I would like to say that it was all Greek to me, but I think that Greek would be much easier to understand. I simply didn’t get it. Calculus did not resemble any of the math I had learned up until that point. In spite of the fact that it used some algebra and geometry and elementary functions, I was drowning in the abstract concepts.

The “controversy” over this mosque is hitting me the same way. I don’t get it. Al Qaeda brought down the Twin Towers and Al Qaeda is a radial offshoot of the Islamic faith. Therefore, a mosque should not be built within two blocks of the Ground Zero? Really? I understand that emotions are running high. All Americans feel an emotional attachment to the Twin Towers, Ground Zero and 9/11. For several months in late 2001, we were all New Yorkers. Everyone was glued to their TVs.

Policy should not be made based on emotional feelings. Policy should be made based on sound fundamental principles. We can find many of those principles within our Constitution. We know that our forefathers fled Europe in order to practice religion the way they wanted to practice it. Because religious freedom is important to all Americans, it is written into our constitution. The Constitution clearly says — freedom of religion. We also have the right to own property. So a religious group would like to place a religious structure on private land. What’s the big deal?

I’ve been told that various factions both inside and outside of New York don’t think that building a mosque that close to Ground Zero is a good idea. So? Unless the mosque is going to be built with federal, state or local funds, it is a private enterprise. To my way of thinking, if you really don’t want a mosque there, then you need to buy the property. Maybe you should ask Rupert Murdoch to lend you the money.

I’ve also been told that Hamas supports building a mosque. I don’t care what Hamas thinks. They are terrorist organization that does not influence policy here in the United States. We should follow our rules and our laws. (Oh, and Governor Paterson should stay out of this. Nothing good can come from jumping in the middle of this insanity. Howard Dean, what happened?!?!? Did you get hit on the head? Can we revoke his liberal license?)

Finally, how close to Ground Zero can you build a mosque without this controversy? If two blocks is too close, how ’bout five blocks? If five blocks is too close, how about 10 blocks? Where is the line? Should we put it to a vote? I find this whole controversy a complete and total distraction from the important issues that grip our country. We need jobs. Those of us who have jobs need a living wage. We need clean energy. We need the economy to get better. We need to bring our troops home from two ineffectual wars. Yet, here we are, fixated on a mosque being built on private land two blocks from Ground Zero. This whole argument makes just as much sense as calculus did back in high school.

BTW, I’ll be on Local Edge Radio at 4 pm EST, today! Check me out.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Religion by ecthompson md
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I’ve been furiously reading about the economic meltdown. There are so many factors and so many people involved. The system is so complex. For those of us who never studied economics, this has been an eye-opening experience. I foolishly thought that huge Wall Street firms had some amount of cash on hand. This cash would then be used to fund the trades of that firm and its clients. Well, this just proves that I’m old and misinformed. That is not how it’s done.

The repo market, repurchase transaction, grew up in the late 80s and early 90s. These amount to short-term loans which these large financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Citibank depend on on a day-to-day basis. As I understand it, in order to operate, these financial giants and large banks will raise billions of dollars on a day-to-day basis in order to fund their operations. These loans are backed with the securities that are held by these financial institutions. The loans can be as short as 24 hours and as long as a week to 10 days.

It is unclear how large the repo market really is. According to one professor, the repo market is $12 trillion (that is trillion with a T.)

So, one source of the major collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers was the repo market. If your stock is getting hammered, for whatever reason, and people are worried about your financial health, it is understandable that these short-term loans would become problematic. Those institutions lending money weakened asked for more and more collateral. Therefore, as in the case of Bear Stearns, some institutions asked for more collateral every single day for the same loan. Finally, as the rumors continued to mount, those institutions simply stopped lending money. This is money that you use every day to operate. Without the money, you’re stuck in the water without paddles.

This repo market was one of the reasons that these extremely large institutions collapsed so quickly. Now, I have not read every single word of the Wall Street Financial Reform Act. I don’t think they addressed the repo market at all. This seems to be a huge problem in our financial system. Maybe it’s more politically correct to state that it is a “huge challenge.” It seems to be nothing but craziness to me.

What are your thoughts on the repo market?

Tags: Business, Economy by ecthompson md
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We’ve all heard the rhetoric that President Barack Obama really hasn’t done anything during his 18 months as president. There seems to be an overwhelming outcry asking, “What have you done for us lately and what will you do for us soon?” If you listen to the media, President Obama has been a failure. If President Obama is a failure then Einstein is a moron who needed remedial education. We must remember the environment that we are in. Conservatives will never say anything positive about the president. This is a given. Progressives will always want a more liberal policy then comes out of Washington. This is also a given. So the President is getting criticism from all sides. I want to take a moment to review Barack Obama’s legislative accomplishments.

Financial Reform – Big financial institutions now have more stringent regulations which should decrease their ability to make risky investments and make our economy less vulnerable. The government now has the ability to regulate derivatives. These were the instruments which helped cause the Great Recession. A new federal watchdog agency has been created to help consumers against these financial institutions.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 – This bill simply restores worker protection against paid discrimination. One would think that this would not be a big deal. This bill was shepherded through Congress against almost universal Republican opposition.

Hate Crimes Prevention Act – This bill extends hate crimes legislation to cover gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 – All I can do is smile when I see this piece of legislation. The credit card industry spent millions of dollars trying to lobby Congress to kill this legislation. In spite of their efforts, some decent legislation came out. This ended retroactive rate increases. This made it mandatory to give us, the consumers, 45 day notice before rate hikes. There is also a limit to the amount of fees that can be charged. There is also language in this legislation to make our credit card bills easier to read and easier to understand. This was a huge consumer victory.

Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act – This piece of legislation gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products.

Universal National Service Act – This law set-asides billions of dollars to help students and seniors earn money through volunteer service. This can help students earn money for college.

Stem Cell Research – President Obama signed an executive order which ended the federal ban on embryonic stem cell research. Briefly, we all have stem cells in our bodies. Embryonic stem cells are a basic cell which has the ability to stimulate correctly to become any other cell in the body. The promise of stem cell research is great. Imagine one day being able to inject stem cells into the pancreas of a diabetic and those cells becoming healthy pancreatic cells, no more insulin shots. Imagine a 21-year-old who was in a devastating car crash and is unable to walk because of damage to his spinal cord. Hopefully, one day, we can inject specially treated stem cells directly into the spinal cord in order to heal the damaged segment. This is the promise of stem cells. (editor’s note: this paragraph has been edited to more accurately describe what President Bush banned and what president Obama overturned.)

Healthcare Reform – Americans are no longer beholden to insurance companies. Over 20 million Americans that do not have health insurance will be covered under this sweeping initiative.

Economic Recovery Act Of 2009 – President Barack Obama and the Democrats have been taking a beating from Congressional Republicans and talking heads about the stimulus package. Recent analysis by conservative economists, Mark Zandi (John McCain’s chief economist and an economist for Moody’s) and Alan Blinder (Princeton professor and served as vice-chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve) found that intervention by this Congress and president Obama caused our GDP to be 11.5% higher and saved over 8.5 million jobs. The stimulus worked to avoid the Great Depression 2.0.

No President in our modern era has faced as much of an uphill battle as Barack Obama. Recently, at the Net Nation conference, ousted administration official Van Jones described the 44th Presidency by saying, “Barack Obama volunteered to steer the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.” In spite of his clear accomplishments, this President has faced overwhelmingly negative media, a stoically resistant Republican Party all while fighting wars both economic and military. And yet, he perseveres. As he stated at his address to the Urban League in late July, “I didn’t take this job to do the popular thing, I took it to do the right things.” For that, he has earned my admiration and continued support. I look forward to the future he is attempting to steer the nation towards.

Tags: Newsletter, Obama administration, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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I continue to be amazed at the fervor that is being generated by a mosque that is being planned two blocks from Ground Zero. I have a few questions for those that are outraged.

1. How far away from Ground Zero is okay? Five blocks? 10 blocks? 15 blocks? 100 blocks?
2. Since when have conservatives become so upset over a private company building on their own land?
3. I thought we were at war with Al Qaeda and not Islam?

Slate has more:

3.  The project is a statement of Islamic conquest. This is Gingrich’s position. “The ground zero mosque is a political statement of radical Islamist triumph,” he tweeted Friday in response to Obama’s speech. Debra Burlingame, the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, issued a similar statement: “Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act.”

These are flat-out lies. The project isn’t a “15-story mosque.” It’s a community center with a library, gym, auditorium, and restaurant. Yes, it will include a mosque. It will also host events to facilitate “multifaith dialogue.” It isn’t at Ground Zero—it’s two blocks away, in what used to be a Burlington Coat Factory.

Deliberately provocative? Radical triumph? Hogwash. Go watch Faisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the project, as he outlines the project to a local community board: “It will establish this community as the place where the moderate Muslim voice condemns terrorism and works for new, peaceful, and harmonious relationships with all New Yorkers.” Or listen to Daisy Khan, the imam’s wife and executive director, as she explainsto radio host Brian Lehrer why they’re planning to build the project near Ground Zero:

Imam Faisal has been leading a congregation for the last 27 years in Tribeca, really only 10 blocks from Ground Zero. … We, the members of the Muslim community, want to be part of the rebuilding process. And we feel a special obligation. And it’s also our way of giving back to this great city that has given us so much. So we’re coming at it from the point of view of wanting to contribute to our society and to take that tragedy of 9/11 and turn it into something very peaceful and hopeful for all of us.

4. Any mosque near Ground Zero is offensive. Responding yesterday to Obama’s speech, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, “[I]t’s unwise … to build a mosque at the site where 3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of a terrorist attack.”

I’m sorry, Senator: Did you say it’s unwise to build a mosque near the site of a terroristattack?

Others have put the equation more subtly. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., says, “It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero.” Marco Rubio, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida, says, “It is divisive and disrespectful to build a mosque next to the site where 3,000 innocent people were murdered at the hands of Islamic extremism.” All these objections rest on the premise that the 9/11 hijackers, by committing mass murder in the name of Islam, made Islam a religion of mass murder. To accept this equation is to give them the power to define the religion of 1 billion people. That—not the rise of pro-American Islamic pluralism—is the conquest the masterminds of 9/11 sought. Don’t let them have it.

5. Ground Zero is sacred. Palin, rebutting Obama, asks why the project’s sponsors are “so set on building a mosque steps from what you have described, in agreement with me, as ‘hallowed ground.’ ” Her question assumes that the presence of a mosque would defile the sanctity of the site. In other words, unlike Obama, she believes in the kind of sanctity that excludes Islam. That’s exactly the kind of sectarian thinking al-Qaida wants to attribute to the United States and cultivate among Muslims.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Civil Liberty, Religion by ecthompson md
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