Can Bruce Springsteen Refuse to Play a Gay Wedding? RL April 22 16

Islam

• We Can’t Beat Jihadists Unless We’re Real About Their Motivations
• Islamism Is The World’s War On Women
• Noted Catholic Scholar Calls for Westerners to Wake Up to Islam’s Violent Nature
• As Islamism Marches West, Pluralist Muslims Must Stop Its Advance
• Patience and Containment Are the Best Policies Against ISIS - The Atlantic

• Kurdish Opposition Leader: Turkey’s Erdogan ‘Wants a Caliphate’
• Islamist Turkey seizes ALL Christian churches in city and declares them 'state property' | World | News | Daily Express
• Child brides sometimes tolerated in Nordic asylum centers despite bans | Reuters

• Europe: Sharia-Compliant Fashion Goes Mainstream
• French Students Wear Solidarity Veils for ‘Hijab Day’

• Muslim Politician ‘Retires’ From Politics After Refusing To Shake Hands With Woman On Television
• Proposal: Raise ‘Muslim Tax’ to Counter Radical Mosques

media

• News Sites Start Charging Readers to Comment on Articles - Bloomberg
• The Guardian Launches Online Safe Space: Claims ‘Breitbart Is Lousy, But Big and Cheap’
• ‘BBC Trending’ Takes Aim At Right Wing Twitter Users, Reveals Personal Details

• Top Execs Shuffled at Fox News as Outlet Creates New Division
• ‘You Have the World at Your Feet’: Glenn Beck Offers Megyn Kelly His Thoughts About Leaving Fox News

• Stacey Dash: 'I Am Not a Liberal and I Am Not a Feminist Because I Am Not a Coward'
• ‘You’re Sounding a Little Defensive’: Fox Host Challenges Obamacare Architect on Major Insurer’s Exit from Exchanges

Tubman

• What They Didn’t Teach You in School about Harriet Tubman
• Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill Is Problematic Now, Too
• Obama Administration Moves to Add Women, Blacks to $5 and $10 Bills
• These People Don’t Like the ‘Tubman Twenty’
• Dishonoring General Jackson
• Van Susteren: Obama “needlessly dividing the country” by putting Tubman on the $20 bill

thinks

• Conscientious Objectors
• Can Bruce Springsteen Refuse to Play a Gay Wedding?
• Hands Off the Ladies' Rooms

• Know-Nothings in College
• Why does the government hate innovation?
• The FDA Is Turning Away from Science
• Healthy skepticism

• Breakdown In NYC
• Why do liberals want the Bible out of public libraries?
• Expert: Kim Kardashian Posting Nude Photos Is Bad For Young Girls

 

Below the fold: politic, econ., foreign, SCOTUS, congress, freedom of, executive, climate, Clinton, campus, defense, the left, the mess, 2016, and the other

More Mark to Market

I have charged the mark to market changes with being the push off the cliff. I am not clear on every single detail. It is clear that Washington was the cause at most stages. I am not letting mark to market off the hook. It does look less guilty.

Mark to Market

"Mark-to-market accounting has received a lot of criticism during the current financial crisis. But a recent email from Less Antman, a CPA and financial planner, offers the best explanation I've seen of why government-mandated capital requirements are the real source of the problem. Economists now realize that reserve requirements, designed to make banks more LIQUID, have the unintended reverse impact during a panic, tying up cash that banks need to pay out in order to stem the panic. As a result, reserve requirements are fast disappearing as a tool of bank regulation. Similarly, capital requirements, designed to make banks more SOLVENT, also have the reverse impact during a crisis."

Yes i did read it all. It is about to where I start to drown. (over my head) But I do learn.

Killing The Banks with TARP

The second version of TARP or what ever you call it is unclear to me. Your going to encourage private money with borrowed leveraged money? Didn't they already get burned by assets that where backed by the government. If they get out of the way wouldn't someone find a way to make some money out of this mess? Instead everyone sits on the side lines waiting to see what the government is going to do. What are they doing? Confusing the issue more and borrowing more money collateralize by borrowed money. I don't trust them. I am not sure they really want fix the problem. At lest until they pass everything they want behind the veil of fear.

From A PLAN TO KILL BANKS TREASURY'S DEADLY 'KINDNESS'

"The new Treasury plan continues to put most of the emphasis on pushing banks to make more loans to over-indebted consumers, homeowners and firms. Unlike last year, however, Geithner now believes, "Our policies must be designed to mobilize and leverage private capital, not to supplant or discourage private capital. When government investment is necessary, it should be replaced with private capital as soon as possible."
That's a laudable goal - but contradictory. In reality, government capital replaces ("crowds out") private capital, leaving taxpayers holding a bigger and bigger bag. Call that nationalization by default. "

The leverage idea has been around from the start of this mess. It is not a bad idea but the way it is being done now really is not leveraging anything.

"TARP-afflicted firms will have to pay dividends to the Treasury for its preferred shares before any remaining crumbs fall to common shareholders. Treasury will be first to get any dividends or capital gains if the firm does well, and first to get repaid in the event of bankruptcy.
Once a bank or insurance company gets in bed with the government, the property rights of that company's stockholders become uniquely insecure. When the government jumps into the cockpit, smart stockholders bail out.
And depressed stock prices deflate the banks' capital cushion, regardless of Treasury investments - making them more likely to fail and therefore less likely to lend. In other words, government "help" achieves the opposite of Geithner's declared goal."

The government should NEVER be this in bed with any company. If you bail them out that should be it. Give them the money and treat it as a loan, take common stock or just walk away. There is no risk to the government if they are first to get payed in all cases. In this case it was public outrage that there was no guarantee the money would be payed back. The people needed a clear explanation of what this was going to lead to "incremental nationalization of banks and insurance companies". The "people" where wrong. Why? They are not taught these things (I really wasn't either), NO one explains it to them(sometimes if you look around enough) and they are often used. Think for yourself (that's usually what I have to do).
It may be a good sized hill to understand the bank mess. The basic are not that hard. You don't need an economics degree, library of books or really a class on economics. The last one might help but is not necessary. A little logic and some quite time and you should be fine. If it still doesn't make sense. Get a book on logic.

More bad news

I woke up to news of a 60,000 job loss, more foreclosures (some 900,000 right now), oil prices, more bad weather, and a lack luster stock marked to say the least. I am sure there are any number of other things. Oh the string of odd kidnappings and murders of families and kids that are taking a bake seat to the glorious election of the next dear leader. I am not sure how odd but i keep hearing little tidbits over the past 2-3 wks.

I don't have any real suggestions any more. It does look as if Washington isn't helping the matter. At this moment maybe they should at least talk as if they are going to make some server cuts, make it look as if they finally understand that the debt is a noose around all our necks. Start moving interest rates back. Stop the dollar bleeding, literally stop printing money. yes is more symbolic than anything else but couldn't hurt much now.

20 Things This Guy Learned from His Life

I like list like most so there is this: 20 Things I'm Glad Life Taught

Starting on a dark note, I for a long time didn't really understand what causes one say to take their own life. I have, i think, gotten some idea in the past two or three years. Not that i have "stared into the abyss" but i have seen the edge. There is real darkness in people. I don't think you can get a understanding of the world, people and your self until you get some glimpses of it.

These list aren't as useful as you might think. The thing to you have to know is hinted at in the comments and intro and only recently become crystal clear to me. That is these thing do not soak in just reading them or even understanding them in a literal sense. Until you come to the idea repeatedly on your own it has far less meaning and is not part of your character, part of your consciousness or the way you approch the world. Call it wisdom? I have been wanting to write on the matter for a while so I'll stop thinking past whats in front of me, and pick it up latter.

There is wisdom in most things. No exception with this but it is a little to bright and shiny, new agey and to me is not all that deep. Not saying there it's all wrong, just some observations.

Hitting the high/low points:
3. Where you are doesn't determine where you can go: can be used as an excuse for allowing current failures

9. You have many talents: how do you define talent, many things can be learned and practiced till they may resemble talent but i think that is in all of us

10. Don't work hard with out reward: very slippery slope, does delayed gratification ring any bells

11. Money does bring happiness: he's not saying money= happiness, more like money make happiness easier to a point (more discussion in the comments)

12. Someone always has it worse. We have all said that. Is it useful? Does it help? its never really helped me. Okay there is a guy with cancer right now, that doesn't relate at all to my day at work.

16. Most people are nice: Doesn't mean i what to know them. "would you like some tea. Aren't the bows in Mr. Fluffy's hair so nice. i just..." I.Q point right out he window. And i doesn't mean they aren't insane. "Would you like some tea. Boy that Hitler was so misunderstood we should bring that back..." Do i run or figure out how to have them committed, decisions, decisions.

17. Words and thought control everything: i from earth where are you from? There is a minuscule gain of truth but should never be stated this way or with out a couple paragraphs of explanation.

18.Your view is reality: "If you see something as exciting and positive, then that's what it is." I moved in with my grandmother 2+ yrs ago to, as it turns out, watch her die of cancer 3 months later only to be called away one day, month before she died, a couple of weeks before Christmas, to a little later carry our family dog in my arms, still haveing seizures to the vet to be put to sleep. WTF? Exciting and positive? An extreme example but still WTF?

20. You can change the world: If i piss on my front yard that changes the world. It is a matter of degree. If you really dramatically change the world you won't live long enough to see it. I don't mean you will be killed for it. I mean big changes take time and effort, usual a lot of both.

Read through the comment and make your own judgments on how deep, insightful, useful and/ or wrong it is.

Two other links i may tackle another day from the same place.

Do You Recognize the 7 Ingredients of Maturity?

Things I Wish I Knew...