EFTA01144413.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bcc: [email protected] Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 05/12/2013 Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 17:17:08 +0000 Attachments: Terrorism_and_the_Other_Religions_Juan_Cole_RSN_24_April_13.pdf; How_A_Teacher_Encouraged_Her_Students_With_An_r_Rita_Pierson_TED_Weekends_O 5 06 2013.pdf; I; Ta Cruz eligible_to_run_for_president_Ed_OKeefe_&_Aaron_Blake_TWP_May_6„2 013.pcif; Too:Big-to- Fail_Takes_Another_Body_Blow_Matt_Taibbi_Rolling_Stone_May_7,2013.pdf; Qatar_BanIc_No._l_Supplanting_Singapore_as_Canada_Slips_Robert_Tuttle_&_Chong_Po of _Koon_Bloomberg_May_1„2013.pdf; Worlds_Strongest_BanIcs_-_Bloomberg_- May_l „2013.pdf; The_First_3D-Printed_Gun_Has_Been_Fired- Alexis Kleinman Huff Post_May_8,2013.pdf; Maxs_Kansas_history_5-12-2013.pdf; Economists_See_becif_Emphasis_asimpeding_Recovery_Jackie_Cahnes_&_Jonathan_ fi Weisman_NYT_May_8,2013.pdf; Dow_15,000_and_the_retirement_crisis_ahead_Matt_Miller_TWP_May_8„2013.pdf; How_Wall_Street_Defanged_Dodd-Frank_The_Nation_April_30,2013.pdf; The_Facts_Are_In_and_Paul_Ryan_Is_Wrong_Jonathan_Chait_New_York_Magazine- May_10,2013.pdf; Hospital_Prices_No_Longer_Secret_As_New_Data_Reveals_Bewildering_System„Stagger ing_Cost_Differences_Huff_Post_05_08_2013.pdf lane-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png DEAR FRIEND Teachers don't make a lot of money. And they are usually not deemed worthy of news coverage unless there is a scandal or a strike. Most of the time, their major accomplishments are only shared with colleagues and family members and not the media. Even then the celebration is often cut short by some catastrophe the next day. Yet, in spite of the highs and lows, many teachers cannot think of another profession that brings them both joy and challenge on a daily basis. In the spring of her career, Rita Pierson found herself questioning the choice of her life's work because the students did not appear to be motivated, the paperwork was overwhelming and the constant change of educational direction was discouraging. Still, Rita could not seem bring herself to do anything else. "Next year", she would say. "Next year I will switch jobs, make more money and have far less stress." Next year just never came. She am now in year 40. And while Rita is no longer in the classroom or at the schoolhouse, she remains an educator. Pierson, "itfinally dawned on me that there was no other profession that would let me change children's minds and have an impact on their future, long after the school day and school year were over." For every student that finally "got it," for every rookie teacher that said, "you inspired me to stay," Rita explains that this affirmation was more rewarding than anything else. Pierson: I was on a plane recently and the flight attendant asked my name. When I told him, he said, "I knew that was you! You taught at my elementary school. You made me take my cap off in the building and told me I was handsome." He then paused and said: "I think I kept my hat on until you saw me, just so I could get that compliment. Thank youfor making mefeel special." I don't think he EFTA01144413 realized how special he made me feel that day. There have been so many former students over the years that have made me realize the sustaining power of relationships. I most certainly realize the extreme importance of being a competent teacher. Unfortunately, far too many in our ranks are unqualified and poorly trained. Many are working tirelessly to rectify that. But while we address what we teach and when we teach it, we must not forget to include how we deliver those lessons. Unless there is a connection between teacher, student and lesson, learning becomes tiresome to all involved. Veteran educator, James Comer, states that, "No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship." Yet, the value of relationships is often downplayed or ignored completely in teacher preparation programs. Even more disturbing is the lack of useable information on the relationship building process. There is the belief among some that camaraderie between teachers and students leads to unprofessional familiarity or places the teacher in a weakened position in the classroom. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strong relationships encourage learner exploration, dialogue, confidence, and mutual respect. I made it my business to know everything I could about my students. Where they lived and with whom, how often they changed schools, how many siblings they had, whether or not they lived in a house or an apartment, whether there was trauma or drama in the household. I went on home visits and shopped in the neighborhood stores so I could be certain to run into my students and the folk they lived with. (Some of my best parent conferences were held on the produce aisle at the grocery store). Many may consider my actions extreme. I called it "preparation for what might lie ahead." Teaching and learning is often hindered by the details not found in school records. There is an African proverb that states: "The best time to make afriend is when you don't need one." I was being proactive. It is advice I always give to others. The more you know about a person, the easier it is to develop an alliance (if that is your intention). Positive, healthy relationships rely on clear communication. Without it, misunderstandings occur and intentions are misinterpreted. I wanted an open pathway to learning, so I was open to their questions, as well. We have now entered an age where nothing is private and secrets are hard to keep. Your 'friends" are counted by simply clicking a button. Face to face interactions are seen by many as unnecessary and time-consuming. Of course, we can do just about anything online, including teaching and learning. But I guess I am just old school. I want to look into your eyes when the answer finally dawns on you. I want to hear that inflection in your voice when you are angry with me. I want to see the smile on your face when you forgive me. I want to share in the joy when we both realize that we make a good team. Rita F. Pierson Every successful student had at least one teacher like Rita Pierson. I had several teachers who believed in me to the point that it inspired me ("that I am somebody"), to believe in myself.... I wish that we celebrated our great teachers to the same degree that we celebrate great athletes, as this might encourage more teacher to reach outfor greatness and thus inspire more students.... I urge everyone to take time to view this video, just so educators like this know that their dedication is appreciated and that they too are Somebody Greg Brown Web Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.comfrita-f-pierson/student-teacher-relationships_b_3203159.html Please Watch the above Ted Talk with Rita Pierson: How A Teacher Encouraged Her Students With An 'F' EFTA01144414 Surfing television this week I came across TED Talks Education, hosted by John Legend which premiered May 7, 2013 on PBS. Having discovered Rita Pierson earlier in the week I watch the last part of the show and the next day I went on-line and downloaded the entire show which starts with Rita Pierson (which you canfast-forward if you have already seen her via the earlier web-link) and continues with other educators and success stories including Geoffrey Canada, Bill Gates, Rita F. Pierson and Sir Ken Robinson. TED Talks Education is part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's American Graduate initiative. The TED Talks Education one-hour program brings together a diverse group of teachers and education advocates delivering short, high-impact talks on the theme of teaching and learning. The one thing that all of the speakers have in common is a deep commitment to addressing the high school dropout crisis. These original TED Talks are given by thoughtful leaders and as a 10th grade high-school dropout who somehow became the exception, I invite you to see the entire show: http://www.pbs.orpmethed-talks-education/ ****** On May 2, 2013 in Omaha, Nebraska, "the Oracle of Omaha," billionaire Warren Buffett sat down with Fortune Magazine's Pattie Sellers to discussed the changing landscape for women in business. The billionaire Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said that women are the key to America's prosperity and that this point has been seriously neglected. He points out that our country's progress since 1976 has been mind-blowing beyond anything else the world has seen because of a political and economic system that unleashed human potential to an extraordinary degree, allowing Americans today to enjoy and abundance of goods and services that no one could have dreamed of just a few centuries ago. See web-link: http://monev.cnn.com/interactive/leadership/buffett-interviewfortune/?iid=F_F500M EFTA01144415 His argument is that we accomplished this in part using only half of the country's talent, because for most of our country's history, women — whatever their abilities -- have been relegated to the sidelines and only in recent years have we begun to correct that problem. Despite the inspiring "all men are created equal" assertion in the Declaration of Independence, male supremacy quickly became enshrined in the Constitution. In Article II, dealing with the presidency, the 39 delegates who signed the document -- all men, naturally -- repeatedly used male pronouns. Which Buffet describes, "in poker, they call that a tell." And although 133 years later in 1920, the U.S. softened its discrimination against women via the 19th Amendment, which gave them the right to vote. But that law scarcely budged attitudes and behaviors. In its wake, 33 men rose to the Supreme Court before Sandra Day O'Connor made the grade -- 61 years after the amendment was ratified. And for those of you who like numbers, the odds against that procession of males occurring by chance are more than 8 billion to one. In the article in Fortune Magazine, Buffett called women the key to America's prosperity writing, "we've seen what we can be accomplished when we use 50 percent of our human capacity. If you visualize what 100 percent can do, you'll join me as an unbridled optimist about America's future." BUFFETT: I think there should be more pushingforward, in terms of both the outer structure, but then I was also encouraging women not to hold themselves back. Being a minority myself, who was excluded and at times prevented from fully participating in everything that the country offered and raised by a single mother who didn't discover opportunities until she was in her late 5os and early 6os, I am truly sympathetic to the plight of women in America. As many of you may know.... in addition to shows like Frontline and Moyers & Company, one of my favorite television shows is "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. And last week's panel included government affairs manager Mattie Duppler, who when asked if she was encouraged by April's jobs numbers and strong financial markets, instead of answering the question or giving some kudos to the President, her reply was that the President was wrong when he said that The Sequester would hurt the economy, even though most economists say that The Sequester and its run-up has already stifled more than 800,000 job growth. When told of these number like many Conservatives she cavalierly dismissed them, ignoring that these numbers are life and death issues to single mothers raising a children, long-term unemployed fathers, seniors who have exhausted their savings and high school and college graduates who no longer see sight of the American Dream, not to mention the millions of Americans who have already fallen through the cracks of society. I understand holding the opposition "in contempt," because growing up in New York, Yankee and Red Sox supporters have held each other in contempt since its owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the rival New York Yankees on December 26, 1919. But even though the Yankees—Red Sox rivalry is one of the oldest, (more than rot) years) most famous and fiercest rivalries in sports, after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, on April 17, 2013 a stadium full of Yankees fans stood arm in arm at the bottom of the third inning in the Bronx, singing along to 'Sweet Caroline,' the Boston Red anthem, as a sign of respect and solidarity with arch rival Boston. But when you don't see harm to the real people's lives, beyond one's selfish goal of giving the President a black eye, it is easy for Conservatives like Mattie Duppler to dismiss the consequences of a self-imposed budgets cuts that everyone in Washington and in both political parties say is crazy. And for conservatives to down play the revival of the country's economy and deny the President kudos for this success, leads to both dysfunctionality and poor legislation. We have to change this environment of hyper-partisanship, where bringing down one's opponent has become sport in Washington, DC. There is a misnomer in America is that seniors are living too high on the hog and to deal with the rising health costs and looming social security shortfall, benefits should be cut. The fact is that one in five EFTA01144416 Americans age 65 and over —18.5 percent — were working in 2012, and that percentage has been rising steadily for nearly 3o years. In 1985, only 10.8 percent of Americans 65 and older were still on the job, and in 1995, that figure was 12.1 percent. Both good news and bad news have contributed to this increase. The good news is that more seniors both can and want to work than in years past, as health care and medical science have extended their capabilities, and as the share of Americans in desk jobs has increased while the number on the factory floor has shrunk. A 2011 survey by the Society of Actuaries reported that 55 percent of working seniors said they had stayed employed because they wanted to stay active and involved. But the same survey also showed that 51 percent were working because they needed the money. What advocates for reducing Social Security adjustments fail to consider is that corporate America's shift away from defined-benefit pensions to defined-contribution 401(k) plans — or to no retirement plans at all — diminishing seniors' non-Social Security income and made the very idea of retirement a far more risky prospect. Today, more than half of U.S. workers have no workplace retirement plan. Of those who do, just 35 percent still have defined-benefit pensions. In 1975, 88 percent of workers with workplace retirement plans had defined-benefit pensions. The shift from traditional pensions to 401(k)s is one of the main reasons most seniors aren't able to set aside enough income to guarantee a secure retirement. A 2010 survey by the Federal Reserve found that the median amount saved through 401(k)s by households approaching retirement was $100,000 — not nearly enough to support those households through retirement years, as seniors' life expectancy increases. And as most Americans' wages continue to stagnate or decline, their ability to direct more of their income to 401(k)s diminishes even more. With the eclipse of the defined-benefit pension, Social Security assumes an even greater role in the well-being of American seniors. But advocates of entitlement cuts don't even discuss the waning of other forms of retirement security: Listening to Alan Simpson, you'd never know that America's elderly aren't getting the monthly pension checks their parents got. And it's not as if those employers are suffering. Just as U.S. businesses have been able to raise the share of corporate profits to a half- century high by reducing the share of their workers' wages to a half-century low, so, too, their ability to reduce pension payments has contributed not just to their profits but also to the $1.7 trillion in cash on which they are currently sitting. A modest plan to enable seniors to retire when they wish, rather than having to work well into their 7os and even beyond: Require employers to put a small percentage of their revenue, and a small percentage of their workers' wages, into a private, portable, defined-benefit pension plan. To offset the increased costs, transfer the costs of paying for workers' health care from employers and employees to the government, and pay for the increased costs to the government with the kind of value-added tax that most European nations levy. (The tax burden is higher in Europe, but because the level of benefits is higher as well, the tax has wide public support.) Obviously the odds of enacting this type of program today in America is nil. But until we compensate for, or reverse, the abdication of corporate America from any major role in providing its workers with retirement security, we should lay off monkeying with Social Security to reduce the program's future payments, especially when so many companies have slashed their pensions or are under-funded. In The Washington Post this week, Letter to The Editor under the heading — Losing Head Start makes the sequester scary. In his May 3 op-ed, "Scare tactics didn't work,"Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) accused President Obama of conducting a "'sequester' scare campaign." Yet the senator — and all of us — should have been scared already, because the consequences suffered by our nation's poor children are far scarier than delayed flights. EFTA01144417 By the end of the year, an estimated 70,000 preschoolers will lose places in Head Start. Head Start isn't simply day care. It's a specialized education program for preschoolers in need. Parents learn the difference between discipline and abuse. Teachers monitor kids for malnutrition. Children learn their letters, but also respect and love. It actually saves our country money to make such an investment early in students' lives, so that we don't pay more in social services when problems are harder to fix. This problem affects all American parents when our children sit side by side in public schools. Members of Congress need to cease finger-pointing and start fixing the harm we're doing to our most vulnerable citizens. Cynthia Changyit Levin, Town and Country, Mo. WEEKEND READING Long before 9/11 and the bombing at the Boston Marathon, America survived Timothy McVeigh and The Una bomber. And long before Ted ICaczynsld terrorized America from 1978 to 1995 and Timothy McVeigh bombed the Federal Building on April 19, 1995 that killed 168 including 19 children and injured more than 800 people, the Weather Underground issued a "State of War" proclamation in 1970. I remember all of this because on March 6, 1970 I was in the lobby of Rubin Hall (a NYU dormitory) at 35 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan's Greenwich Village at the time that the first bomb exploded in a townhouse at 18 West 11th Street and having gone to investigate, I coward with a friend in the doorway of The First Presbyterian Church across the street when the second and third bombs went off, blasting debris in every direction. I say all of this because Islamic zealots are just the latest crazies to use bombs as a way to get their point across. I remember London in the 197os when the IRA bombed Hilton Hotel, Harrods Department Store during Christmas shopping, which killed six people include three police officers on Saturday 17 December 1983 and the Brighton Hotel bombing which killed 5 and injured several others in an attempt by the IRA to kill Margaret Thatcher. From Algiers, Beirut, Karachi, Bogota, Mumbai, Columbo, Moscow, Bali, Nairobi, Manila and Madrid terrorist (or freedom fighters) depending on your point of view. And long before Arabs were bombing Palestine, in an attempt to establish a Jewish State, Zionist led by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin bombed the King David Hotel, killing 91 people of various nationalities. The problem is that when you follow American media, it is easy to believe that bombing is unique to Arabs and Muslims, when in fact the truth is that over the past 100 years more than 102 million people have been killed in the name of religion, of which only 2 million were killed by Islamic terrorists world- wide. To put this number is prospective the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, killed more 2 million of their own people in Cambodia and more than 3 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the past decade. Combining ignorance, religiosity, poor reasoning and intolerance, whether it is called ethnic cleansing, fatwa, fight for freedom, purity, One People One Nation, nationalism or in the name of God, people from all religions and persuasions are killing other people. Also, we have to stop calling every knuckhead an enemy combatant. The Boston Marathon Bombers didn't have a plan or disguises and were caught because these evil geniuses made a pit-stop to pick up some Red Bull and did not foresee that the Boston Marathon would be photograph. As Bill Mayer said, "why call every murder an enemy combatant, because it is like calling everyone in porn a Porn Star." Just the term enemy combatant romanticizes them too much. In 2002 the London Times did a story describing Osama bin Laden living in a labyrinth of underground tunnels with moo heavily armed troupes offices, computers, generators and secret passages. When Donald Rumsfeld EFTA01144418 was shown this rendering at the time his reply, "it's not just one of those, there are many of those," when in fact there were zero of those. And when the Navy Seals found bin Laden he was living in isolation in a stucco two story building without phones, guards or sophisticated weapons. After 9/11 we were shell-shock and did not know what kind of enemy we were dealing with -- 12 years later we have a much better idea, loosers. F-ups, idiots. The Times Square bomber couldn't even make gasoline explode, and locked himself out of his car bomb. The Shoe Bomber couldn't light his shoes on fire. The Underwear Bomber couldn't ignite his own underwear, not to mention that he was traveling on a one-way ticket, with no money, no coat going to Detroit in the winter, under his real name, Mohammed Kubule. The Liberty Seven were put away for their plan to blow up the Sears Tower, even though they didn't even have a gun, plan, explosives or detonators. The Fort Dix Six filmed themselves shouting and shouting about Allah and were caught when they took the tape to Circuit City to have it transferred to DVD. As Maher summarized in his show last week, the fact that almost all of our credible threats have been loosers who couldn't shoot straight, since 9/11 our ever expanding Homeland Security Department has gotten $990 billion dollars. Why? Bin Laden's plan was never to kills us all but to scare us into over reacting into destroying ourselves. Because if there is one thing that these terrorist have proved that they can blow up, is our balance sheet. Paraphrasing Chris Rock on the death of Tupac & Notorious B.I.G., "Some people are running around saying 'Tupac was assassinated. Biggie Smalls was assassinated.' No, no, no, no. JFK was assassinated. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. Malcolm X was assassinated. Those two n*ggas got SHOT!" And as Ruslan Tsarni described his nephews (Tsarnaev brothers), "their losers." Although a bunch of crazies have killed 3018 American civilians since 9/11 in the name of religion, our response of spending almost $800 billion to stop enemy combatants, is as ridiculous as calling the shooting of the aforementioned rappers assassinations, especially when 30,000 Americans die each year from gun violence and congress won't even pass gun control legislation which could prevent crazy people from buyer guns. Being a news junkie who spends 10 hours a day on the computer, when bored I often surf the web and this week an article caught my eye in The Washington Post by Ed O'Keefe and Aaron Blake — Is Ted Cruz eligible to runfor president? To be honest, I really don't know allot about Ted Cruz other than he is a Texas Republican Senator who just arrived in Washington in January and already is the subject of rampant speculation that he will be a presidential candidate in 2016, particularly after his recent visit to the early-primary state of South Carolina. But as the article points out complicating the calculus is that Cruz, 42, was born in Canada, raising questions about whether he is even eligible to seek the presidency. As a darling of the Tea Party, this has to be a dilemma for the 'birther' faction, who still today believe that Barrack Obama is not a legitimate President, claiming that he was born in Kenya. The Constitution states the president must be a "natural-born citizen." Cruz's mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born (his father was born in Cuba) and current law extends citizenship to anyone born to a U.S. citizen, regardless of where the birth takes place. The question is whether U.S. citizenship is the same thing as being a "natural-born citizen." There is no doubt about Cruz's birthplace, as his spokesman Catherine Frazier said last Monday that the senator "is a U.S. citizen by birth, having been born in Calgary to an American-born mother." And although Canada is closer than Kenya or Hawaii, why aren't birthers upset? Cruz would not be the first presidential candidate to face questions of eligibility. Democrats in 1967 suggested that Republican George Romney would not be eligible to serve as president, because he was born to U.S. citizens in Mexico. But a New York Law Journal piece at the time, argued forcefully that he would be eligible, which seemed to put the issue to rest. Ultimately, Romney's primary campaign imploded based on comments he made about the Vietnam War. More recently, Sen. John EFTA01144419 McCain (R-Ariz.), who was born in the Panama Canal Zone to U.S. citizens, faced questions about his eligibility when he earned the GOP nomination in 2008. The Senate passed a resolution stating that McCain was indeed a natural-born citizen after he secured his party's nomination. The issue of eligibility dates back to Chester A. Arthur, who began facing questions of his eligibility after becoming president in 1881. Democrats claimed that Arthur, a Republican, wasn't born in the northern reaches of Vermont as he maintained but in a far southern section of Canada. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has even weighed in on the issue, writing in November 2011 that people born to U.S. citizens in foreign countries "most likely"qualify as natural- born citizens. I have to ask the question, why Republican candidates for President can be born outside of the American borders, without Donald Trump demanding to see the long-form of their birth certificates, when these same critics maintain that Barrack Obama's presidency is illegitimate. Aside from the hyper-partisan atmosphere in today's politics, I have to believe that the color of his skin plays a much larger part in the denial by many Conservatives then most non-minorities, including Democrats and Independents would like to acknowledge. And until Donald Trump's demands Cruz's birth certificate, I will forever call him and other birthers — racist bigots — because they are.... ****** This week in Rolling Stone Magazine, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi writes — Too-Big-to- Fail Takes Another Body Blow, saying that minds are changing on Too Big to Fail. A month ago, it was just something in the air. Now, it looks like we're headed for a real legislative confrontation. And many, is the finance sector freaking. Because, last week, on April 24th, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Louisiana Republican David Vitter introduced legislation called the "Terminating Bailoutsfor Taxpayer Fairness Act of 2013 Act," or the "Brown-Vitter TBTF Act" for short. The bill is a gun, aimed directly at the head of the Too-Big-To-Fail beast. During the Dodd-Frank negotiations a few years ago, Brown teamed up with Delaware Democrat Ted Kaufman to introduce an amendment that would have physically capped the size of the biggest banks. The amendment was bold and righteous but was slaughtered on the floor by a 61-33 margin, undermined by leaders of both parties - 27 Democrats voted against it. Brown-Vitter offers a different and, in a way, more elegant solution to the problem than Brown-Kaufman. Rather than impose size limits, it simply insists that banks with over $500 billion in assets maintain higher capital reserves than are currently required. If enacted, companies like J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America will have to keep capital reserves of about 15 percent, about twice the current amount. The bill only has such tough requirements for just those few megabanks, which sounds unfair, except that the aim of the bill, precisely, is to level the playing field. Right now, the biggest U.S. banks enjoy a massive inherent market advantage in that they're able to borrow money far more cheaply than other banks, because everybody on earth knows the government will never let them fail and will always bail them out in a pinch, making their debt essentially U.S.-government guaranteed. Studies have shown that these banks borrow money at about o.8 percent more cheaply than other banks, and that this implicit government subsidy is worth about $83 billion a year just to the top 10 banks in America. This bill would essentially wipe out that hidden subsidy and make the banks bailout-proof. And as soon as Brown-Vitter was introduced, a very interesting thing happened. The Independent Community Bankers of America, or ICBA, issued a press release boosting the bill. "ICBA strongly supports this legislation," the release read, "and urges all community banks to join the association in advocating passage of legislation to end too-big-to-fail." This was a big thing. It was the first time since the crisis that a prominent financial industry group opposed the will of the TBTF banks. I remember covering Dodd-Frank and being told by a number of members in the House and the Senate that the sentiment of many community bankers was for EFTA01144420 breaking up or at least curtailing the power of companies like Chase and Bank of America, but that the community banking lobby was not yet prepared to take that step. But now, after the London Whale, the LIBOR scandal, the outrageous HSBC settlement and nearly five years of rapacious market- dominating behavior by these state-backed banks, the community banks have finally split off from TBTF. Even Sandy Weill. Weill, the man for whom the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed back in the nineties, so that his already-completed Citigroup merger could be legalized, came out last year and said we have to break up the banks. Tabbi: Naturally, there was going to be a response to Brown-Vitter from Wall Street. And we got it last week, shockingly not from one of the banks or a lobbying firm connected to the banks, but from the Standard and Poor's ratings agency - supposedly a strict, humorlessly conservative auditor that should always abhor risk and look favorably upon greater safety and security. The very fact that such a company came out against a bill forcing banks to have safer balance sheets is in itself absolute proof of how completely fucked and corrupt our current system is. The S&P report, entitled "Brown-Vitter Bill: Game-Changing Regulation For U.S. Banks", is so incredibly hysterical in its tone that, reading it, one cannot help but deduce that people on Wall Street are genuinely afraid of this bill. The paper essentially hints that forcing banks to retain more capital could lead to world financial collapse, the onset of a new Ice Age, mammoths roaming Nebraska, etc. "The ratings implications of the Brown- Vitter bill, if enacted, for all U.S. banks would be neutral to negative," the report read. In the second paragraph, it reads: If congress enacts the bill as proposed, Standard and Poor's Ratings Services would have concerns about the economic impact on banks' creditworthiness stemming from the transition to substantially higher capital requirements. Having a ratings agency bent to monopolistic bank influence give a bad rating to a piece of legislation designed to . .. curb monopolistic bank influence is a bad surrealistic joke, like a Rene Magritte take on lobbying - Ceci n'est pas une Too-Big-To-Fail! Remember, one of the primary causes of the financial crisis in the first place was the corruption of the independent ratings agencies. In the crisis years, companies like S&P and Moody's and Fitch were so desperate to avoid losing business from the big investment banks (who paid the ratings firms to rate products like mortgage-backed securities) that these companies often gave embarrassingly overenthusiastic grades to a generation of toxic assets. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in its final report placed blame for the crisis squarely on the shoulders of these firms. "The three credit rating agencies were key enablers of the financial meltdown. The mortgage-related securities at the heart of the crisis could not have been marketed and sold without their seal of approval," the FCIC report read. "This crisis could not have happened without the rating agencies." Intellectually compromised ratings agencies were guilty before, when they were too quick to help Too- Big-To-Fail banks sell bad products into the world marketplace. Now, an intellectually-compromised ratings agency is helping sell the very Too-Big-To-Fail system in an attempt to beat back a reform bill - an agency that once stated explicitly that it does not take public positions on legislation. When the referees are compromised, the game is fixed. In this case when the game is fixed, the public suffers, while the fat cats who perpetuated the malfeasance or played fast and loose with other people's money ("OPM") receive outrageous compensation packages based on short-term gains, knowing that the businesses that they run are too big to fail and no one will hold them personally responsible for any loses. Hopefully Brown-Vitters will change this and hats off to Matt Taibbi and others who are shining a light on this most important issue. ****** This week in Bloomberg in an article by Robert Tuttle & Chong Pooi Koon - Qatar Bank No.t Supplanting Singapore as Canada Slips. The tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar controls vast gas and oil deposits that feed billions of dollars annually into the state Treasury and as a result of its EFTA01144421 petroleum riches, it is the wealthiest nation per capita in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund, with an averaged 13 percent annual growth during the five years through 2012. The Qatar Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, has big stakes in Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., Barclays Plc (BARC), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and Tiffany & Co (11F). It owns London department store Harrods outright. As Qatar's government has spread its financial wings, the country's biggest financial institution, Qatar National Bank SAQ (QNBK), has been at its side. Under Ali Shareef Al Emadi, its chief executive officer since 2005, QNB has become the largest lender in the Middle East and one of the most profitable. Even as the bank has expanded, Al Emadi has maintained QNB'S capital base and aversion to risk. As a result, based on its performance in fiscal year 2012, Qatar National Bank is #1 in Bloomberg Markets' third annual ranking of the world's strongest banks. Also attached is a list compiled by Bloomberg, ranking the top 20 strongest banks in the world. What is surprising about this list is not that a oil sheikdom is the home of the Strongest Bank in The World, but that only two American banks are included in this list; Citibank #9 and JP Morgan at #15. While Canada is the home of five banks in the Top 20, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce #3, Royal Bank of Canada #4, Bank of Nova Scotia #7, Toronto-Dominion Bank #8 and the National Bank of Canada at #17. China has four banks in the Top 20 if the Hang Seng at no is included. Tied with America are Singapore and Sweden two banks in the Top 20. And the only other countries with banks in the Top 20 are Malaysia and Turkey. So where is Germany, France, UK and Switzerland? The strongest-bank ranking includes lenders with at least $loo billion in assets -- something QNB achieved for the first time in 2012 with a series of acquisitions in the Mideast and North Africa that gave it a foothold in 25 countries. The ranking weighs and combines five criteria, including Tier 1 capital compared with risk-weighted assets; nonperforming assets against total assets; and efficiency, a measure of costs against revenues. Tier 1 capital consists of a bank's cash reserves, common equity and some classes of preferred stock, all of which combine to act as a shock absorber against losses when the economy hits a rough patch. QNB joins a ranking whose top tier is dominated for a third year by Asian and Canadian lenders. Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. (OCBC), #1 the past two years, dropped to #2 in 2012. Some of Canada's banks also fell, as the industry was hit by ratings downgrades and hurt by a slowing economy and an increasingly risky housing sector. An exception was Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), or Scotiabank, which moved up to #7 from #18. In regional rankings, three of the top five European banks are Swedish, while all four of the strongest banks in South America are in Brazil. David Knutson, a senior analyst at Legal & General Investment Management America, says the Federal Reserve gets the credit, for refusing to allow Citibank to dissipate its capital through share buybacks and dividend, which is the only reason why it is on the list at #9. Obviously, the Qatar National Bank is an exception, The bank's chairman, Yousef Kamal, is the country's finance minister. It's 50 percent owned by the QIA, the $loo billion fund that absorbs much of the country's oil and gas revenues. Bigger than all other publicly listed domestic lenders combined, QNB provided 66 percent of loans to the government and government-owned entities last year, while state agencies accounted for more than half of deposits, according to data provided by the bank. "The bank is essentially an extension of the state," says Akber Khan, director of asset management at Al Rayan Investment in Doha. "Any concerns about future capital adequacy or balance sheet strength are entirely redundant." While the bank benefited from the government's purchase of its real estate investments after the 2008 financial crisis, it didn't receive a government capital increase as other local lenders had. QNB'S profits have risen by an average of 27 percent a year during the past five years. QNB has become a global financial force, driven to do business outside the country in part by the small size of its home market. Qatar's population is 1.9 million, and just 20 percent of its residents are native Qataris. As economic EFTA01144422 turmoil gripped the world, other banks shrank into their home territories, Al Emadi says. "We've done completely the other way around,"he says. During 2012, the bank purchased stakes in Iraqi and Libyan lenders. In March 2013, it bought the Egyptian branch of France's Societe Generale SA (GLE) for $2.45 billion. In April 2012, it sought to acquire Turkey's Denizbank AS; it lost out to Moscow-based OAO Sberbank. In 2011, QNB acquired a controlling stake in Indonesia's PT Bank Kesawan. Indonesia is the home market for PT Indosat, which is controlled by QNB customer Qatar Telecom QSC. The Qatar phone company recently changed its name to Ooredoo. "QNB's profits have doubled in the last three years," Than says. "For very rapid growth to continue, growth outside Qatar will be necessary." The article says that Canadian banks have lost a little of their luster , because even though five of the six biggest Canadian banks are among the 20 strongest, only two -- Scotiabank (BNS) and Royal Bank of Canada -- improved their positions. Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) fell to #8 from #4. Still, Toronto- Dominion CEO Ed Clark says nothing has changed. "Every year, our stress tests tell us we're stronger than the previous year," he says. That's in part because the bank continues to avoid areas like structured finance, he says and "you don't have to go out on the risk curve to look after the shareholder, and it's a foolish bet to do that." We have to ask if Wall Street's unbridled pursuit of short-term profits in its never ending drive to goose quarterly profits is the reason why only two American banks are in the Top 20 Strongest Banks in the World. ****** The world as we know it has change last Sunday, when according to this video released by Defense Distributed, the controversial company pushing for D-I-Y weapons, the world's first 3D printed gun fired its first shot. Cody Wilson, of Defense Distributed, the company behind The Liberator, told the BBC that he is not concerned with the potential harm the gun could cause. He said, "I recognize the tool might be used to harm other people - that's what the tool is - it's a gun. But I don't think that's a reason to not do it - or a reason not to put it out there." http://www.huffingtonpost.comkon/oc/o6/qd-printed-gun-fired n 3222669.1nmPir=Technology Defense Distributed's goals, as displayed on its website, are the following: To defend the civil liberty of popular access to arms as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, through facilitating global access to, and the collaborative production of, information and knowledge related to the 3D printing of arms; and to publish and distribute, at no cost to the public, such information and knowledge in promotion of the public interest. Though 3D printing is still a fairly nascent technology, its growth is expected to be widespread. Staples expects to offer them in stores next month. Anyone interested in building a gun, then, could go to Defense Distributed's site and download the CAD file to get started. The worst part? It's legal. Donna Sellers of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the BBC that "a person can manufacture a firearm for their own use" in the U.S. The horror of 3D printed guns stands in sharp contrast to some of the more amazing benefits 3D printing could bring, including the ability to revolutionize medicine. Is it worth the risk? The thing with technology, once the genie is out of the bottle there is no way to put it back. Sofor those who are fighting against gun control, they now may be forced to rescind their opposition, when they understand that sometime in the future any crazy with a 3-D printer will be able to download the technology, make a gun and use it use itfor unlawful purposes. ****** EFTA01144423 In an article in the New York Times this week, Jackie Calmes and Jonathan Weisman wrote — Economists See Deficit Emphasis as Impeding Recovery — saying that the nation's unemployment rate would probably be nearly a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth almost two points higher this year if Washington had not cut spending and raised taxes, according to private-sector and government economists. The consensus about the result is clear: Immediate deficit reduction is a drag on full economic recovery. Hardly a day goes by when either government analysts or the macroeconomists and financial forecasters who advise investors and businesses without reporting on the latest signs of economic growth — in housing, consumer spending, business investment. But they usually add that things would be better but for the fiscal policy out of Washington. Currently, tax increases and especially spending cuts, these critics say, take money from an economy that still needs some stimulus now, and is getting it only through the expansionary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. "Fiscal tightening is hurting," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors, wrote to clients recently. The investment bank Jefferies wrote of "ongoingfiscal mismanagement" in its midyear report on Tuesday, and noted that while the recovery and expansion would be four years old next month, reduced government spending "has detractedfrom growth infive ofpast seven quarters." Because of a series of compromises between the President and Congressional Republicans, annual discretionary spending for domestic and military programs will be reduced to the lowest level in half a century. As for revenues, Mr. Obama forced Republicans to acquiesce in January to higher taxes from wealthy Americans. But worse, in the macroeconomists' view, both parties agreed not to extend a two-year-old cut in Americans' payroll taxes for Social Security, reducing their spending money. During the past five years, the president has fought unsuccessfully to combine deficit reduction, including spending cuts and tax increases, with spending increases and targeted tax cuts for job- creation initiatives in areas like infrastructure, manufacturing, research and education. This is a formula closer to what most economists now propose. But Republicans have insisted on spending cuts alone and smaller government as the key to economic growth. With the President calling these cuts, "self-inflicted wounds." "The only way the problem does getfixed is if both parties sit down and they say, `How are we going to make sure that we're reducing our deficit sensibly?' "he said last week at a news conference. "How are we making sure that we're investing in things like rebuilding our airports and our roads and our bridges, and investing in early childhood education, bask research — all the things that are going to help us grow?" Mr. Obama added, "I cannotforce Republicans to embrace those common-sense solutions." According to estimates by Moody's Analytics, recent fiscal tightening through budget cuts and tax increases will slow economic growth for 2013 by about 1.2 percentage points and prevent the unemployment rate from falling to 6.1 percent by the end of the year. Several other economists and forecasters, including Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisers and IHS Global Insight, have come to similar conclusions. Please feel free to download the graphs illustrating the about: hnp://www.nytimes.corn/interactive/2013/05/09/usifiscal-policies-take-a-toll.html?ref=us In an article this week in The Washington Post, writer Matt Miller - Dow 15,000 and the retirement crisis ahead - says that although the Dow's cracked 15,000 and the S&P is at record highs, this largess will not help a large number of Americans because they don't have savings of stocks. And beyond the jobs crisis, a schools crisis, an immigration crisis, an infrastructure crisis, an inequality crisis and a college affordability crisis, the next looming crisis is the retirement crisis. Miller says that the retirement crisis begins with a savings crisis. Consider: According to research summarized recently by the New America Foundation, "nearly half ofAmericans (43.6%) do not have EFTA01144424 enough savings to cover basic expenses if they were to lose their source of stable income. These132.1 million liquid asset poor'Americans include many members of the middle class and upper middle class: more than a quarter of households earning between $55,465 and $90,000 per year — the entire range of which is above the median household income of $50,054 — have less than three months of liquid savings. Over 30% of all households do not have a savings account at all." Furthermore, Miller says that millions of families who earn more than the median income have less than three months of savings put aside. Millions of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Families who at least owned their own houses have had their net worth eviscerated by the housing meltdown, which blew out the backstop on which countless Americans depend. And in a 2011 study found that