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Dubai expose : Lessons still not learned

Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 6:19 pm  
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$60 billion. That is a drop in the bucket as compared to the $10 trillion we have. Yet the doom of Dubai, seemed to have echoed around that world and got the markets panicking. What we can tell you is that we have not learned our lessons yet and this demonstrates the power house economy that US really is.

$60 billion. That is more than you and I would ever make in our lifetimes. But as a corporation, it really is not that much. Microsoft is worth more than $200 billion, Apple are Google, each, are worth more than $150 billion; so how is it that a city state that owes the world $60 billion could shake the world like it did?

The answer : silly risk taking. What caused creditors to be so afraid was that lots of the debts that we see today would be increased many times over due to the manipulation of risk. Let me give you a very much simplified example.

Lets say Company A had some formula to turn water to Gold. Company A goes to Bank A to get a loan, and Bank A approved a loan of $10 million. Bank B does not believe that Company A’s plan. So it does something called a Credit Default Swap. They would give Bank A the money for the loan. Should Company A default on her payments to Bank A, Bank A would pay Bank B $100 million.

The example that I gave above is what I call a 10:1 (100 million to 10 million) bet scenario. There are other examples in real life with methods ranging from short selling to derivatives which have a 30 : 1 bet ratio. Now that is what the EU terms as casino banking.

The same thing happened with Dubai. Should Dubai not be able to pay her debts off, the amount lost by her creditors would not be $60 billion, but in the trillions. That is what the entire pandemonium and panic is all about.

When are we going to learn our lessons? Why can’t we go back to the tried and tested system of a bank putting in capital should they believe in the business plan that they receive. Why must there be what I call sucker capitalism? When are we going to end such practices? Would the next attack be too late to save America? America and the world must wake up to this problem or we would face lots of problems in the future.

Dubai goes $60 billion in the red, and the world panics. Does anybody realize that the world is not that bothered with the trillions of dollars worth of debt when it came to the debt of countries like US, Japan and the UK? This is because the world, as of today, is still very confident in these economies.

I really hope that Dubai bring back the attention of bad banking, as what the economic crash did. It is essential that we get this back in order…

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DoD rape tragedy

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 4:51 pm  
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This is the saddest thing that the Obama administration has done. The US Department of Defense, the people that are supposed to be defending us, thinks that it is okay for rape to happen within their body via their contractors and the accused company be going away scott free.

James Leigh Jones, who was working for Haliburton, was gang raped by her colleagues. She was then locked up in a container to prevent her from reporting the attack. This rape occurred outside US jurisdiction. So when she wanted to sue KBR (which took over from Haliburton but essentially the same employer), they said that it should be in private arbitration.

For those that do not know what arbitration is, it is an outside of court body to settle disputes usually in commercial matters. If you feel that you were not given enough medical leave as it is your entitlement, you usually go to arbitration rather than the courts. It is also the best place to fight out patent, stockbrokers, partnership and employee pay disputes. The arbitrators, the “judges and the jury” in the arbitration are usually subject matter experts in the case matter.

This is not such an example. Rape is rape. It is not an issue that arbitration should handle. It is about a woman’s dignity and loss. Yes, this is not a rape case, but neither is it a case about the clauses of a contract. Any clause in civil contracts should not be about rape. I feel the same way about murder. We cannot have clauses in contracts that say that , “ If you are raped, you cannot go to the courts.” No! It is the right of the victim to take the company to court. These clauses are outright wrong, and now illegal!

Can you imagine if this was done in another company other than the company that Vice President Dick Cheney use to run? Can you imagine a lady being denied a right to sue Microsoft or Apple when she is raped by their employees and told to shut up about it (Arbritation is usually not public)? No way! There would be protests in the streets. If the Haliburton people feel that they are innocent, fight it out in courts!

I would like to ask Senator McCain, if Meghan McCain was in such a predicament, do you think you would be acting in the same manner? I would like to ask President Obama if Sasha or Malia were in this situation, do you think you would be shutting up about this like you are right now. If James Leigh Jones was related to someone of power, do you think we would be having this discussion now?

What has our country gone down to? Are we really sold to the corporations and the lobbyist? Have we lost our marbles? How can some sections claim that homosexuality is immoral but not think twice about preventing a rape victim from having her day in court to seek compensation?

Shame on you, the 30 Republican Senators who think that rape is just another clause in the contract! Shame on the defense contractors, who would cover the rape up and not fight it out in courts! Shame on the Department of Defense, who actually want to suckle off the tits of their contractor and corporations rather than to protect the dignity of a citizen! Shame on President Obama for allowing all of this to happen!

I think this is an unforgivable mistake by the US Department of Defense and the Republican Senators that voted for it. President Obama should not be forgiven too, if he just keeps mum about it. Because in this case, silence can only mean consent.

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Shame on Obama!

Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 5:54 pm  
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Minutes of our last post, Van Jones was fired. Perhaps I should not have said that he would not last the month and said that he should not have last the day instead. But this debacle is really a shame to President Obama and a loud wake up call to his followers.

“Get rid of the politics of the old and get things done,” was a message that won a lot of Independents over. Yet, a simple swift-boat attack on the person best qualified for the job and he has fallen right into the Republicans’ trap. This is one of the most disappointed I have been in a President in a long time.

Perhaps, it is that I have personally went and heard talks from Van Jones that I know that he is not a racist or anti-capitalist. Or it maybe the fact that I have studied green technology enough, that this quitting has really made me angry.

However, it is the sheer lack of fight that is in President Obama that has disappointed me. He has lived up to his party’s mantle; the spineless Democrats. There was not even a hint of support coming from the White House over this issue. That has really got to be a disgrace!

It is going to be very difficult to find somebody that is going to be as qualified as Van Jones when it comes to shaping a green economy. And you threw it all away coming from a party where half the base think that global warming is a hoax.

The sad thing is that the President has a lot of good ideas that are going to waste if he does not stand up for it. Liberals wanting a public option can forget about it entirely! You have to wonder what other promises is he going to back down due to Republican opposition.

It is sad that America has a President that is missing something over the last 9 years. Be it the brains and competency in the President Bush (43) administration or the guts in the current one. Neither would have the ability to get anything done.

Letting Van Jones go because of the accusations is like letting Albert Einstein go because he looks idiotic with fuzzy hair, firing Steve Jobs from Apple because he is Buddhist or rejecting Alan Turing into the British army because he was gay! It is that absurd a choice.

I reiterate again, I would rather have Jesse Ventura as a Senator now rather than Norm Coleman or Al Franken despite him being a 9/11 “truther”. When is saying what you feel, bad in America? Hey, what about Governor’s Parry talk of secession? Should he be tried for treason? How far can you play this puck?

This is really a sad day for me. President has lost a lot of respect for not fighting for his nominee. Liberals have yet to learn, Conservatives have yet to change their political game.

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