Tag: money

Posted on

Guess it runs in the family

Neil Bush was the most widely targeted member of the Bush family by the press in the S&L scandal. Neil became director of Silverado Savings and Loan at the age of 30 in 1985. Three years later the institution was belly up at a cost of $1.6 billion to tax payers to bail out.

The basic actions of Neil Bush in the S&L scandal are as follows:

Neil received a $100,000 “loan” from Ken Good, of Good International, with no obligation to pay any of the money back.
Good was a large shareholder in JNB Explorations, Neil Bush’s oil-exploration company.
Neil failed to disclose this conflict-of-interest when loans were given to Good from Silverado, because the money was to be used in joint venture with his own JNB. This was in essence giving himself a loan from Silverado through a third party.
Neil then helped Silverado S&L approve Good International for a $900,000 line of credit.
Good defaulted on a total $32 million in loans from Silverado.
During this time Neil Bush did not disclose that $3 million of the $32 million that Good was defaulting on was actually for investment in JNB, his own company.
Good subsequently raised Bush’s JNB salary from $75,000 to $125,000 and granted him a $22,500 bonus.
Neil Bush maintained that he did not see how this constituted a conflict of interest.
Neil approved $106 million in Silverado loans to another JNB investor, Bill Walters.
Neil also never formally disclosed his relationship with Walters and Walters also defaulted on his loans, all $106 million of them.
Neil Bush was charged with criminal wrongdoing in the case and ended up paying $50,000 to settle out of court. The chief of Silverado S&L was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for pleading guilty to $8.7 million in theft. (Keep in mind that you can get more jail time for holding up a gas station for $50.)
Today Neil Bush is working on closing a deal in Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor, to sell a software package to schools with his startup company Ignite.

Posted on

Long live the Free Market ! (unless it hurts the wealthy)

Democrats maybe donkeys, but Republicans are dumbasses.

Free Market! Free Market! Free Market! Free Market!Free Market! Free Market!Free Market! Free Market!Free Market! Free Market!Free Market! Free Market!Free Market! Free Market!

Oh shit!

Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money! Save us! Give us Money!

Live by the free market, die by the free market, no?

Isn’t the bank bailout basically socialism?

Why doesn’t the federal government bail me out when I make bad business decisions?

Posted on

United Charging for 2nd Bag

This is just nuts. United Airlines is now charging people $25 to check a 2nd bag. They say that it is because of the cost of fuel. Extra bags use more fuel as they add weight.

Well, what about fat people? Following the extra cost for extra weight logic, fat people should have to pay more also. Why should I at 185 lbs. pay the same as someone who weighs 250lbs.? How about pregnant women? Extra weight extra cost… Should I get a discount if I void my bowels and bladder before getting on the plane? How much does the collective amount of fecal matter weigh on a plane? Maybe I can get a discount if I promise to never use the bathroom while flying. If no one uses it, no need to clean it…think of the savings there. Maybe airlines could start charging people to use the bathroom.

Toilet paper will be extra.

Posted on

Bush’s Stimulus Package

Do we need any more proof that this president is a moron? O.K. so I don’t have a better plan, but then again I am not a graduate of Harvard business school. Isn’t Harvard ashamed of their graduate? Maybe they should revoke his degree. Is such a thing possible? Back in 2004 Bush received a letter from “senior business and economics professors” saying that the president’s “ economic policies are taking the country in the wrong direction”

My stimulus plan would be to drop all income tax for people making less than $35,000 and raise it some on people in the higher brackets. Doesn’t Warren Buffett pay a smaller percentage on his income than his secretary? He paid 17.7% and she paid 30% . I remember hearing once that people who make less money tend to save less money. And more money in circulation is good for the economy, right. So if the lower end of the economic scale has more cash they’ll spend it.

But what do I know? I don’t have and M.B.A.

Posted on

Inflation and the FDIC

I was at a Wells Fargo Branch recently in Walnut Creek. I noticed signs all over the bank saying how each account was insured by the FDIC. The FDIC was created in 1933 to provide “deposit insurance which currently guarantees checking and savings deposits in member banks up to $100,000 per depositor.”

Adjusted for inflation, the $100,000 you would receive if your bank failed in 1933 would be $1,428,225.34 in today’s dollars. So are we being ripped off, or not as well insured as we were back in 1933. $100,000 in 2006 dollars is worth only $7001.70 in 1933 dollars.

Why has the deposit insurance not kept up with the rate of inflation?

Posted on

Maybe he knew playing with matches is wrong. Maybe his parents had told him before this fire that matches are not toys. But he should not be “[removed] from his home and [possibly detained] as a ward of the state.” That is just going to #@#$ him over. How many people go through state systems – foster care, jail – and end up the better for it?

Cyndi Jo Means, a deputy district attorney in nearby San Diego County, says that,” Any finding of guilt… would not follow the boy into adulthood.” Yeah, right. Legally, maybe, but socially…screwed. He’d never get a job at a gas station (but then again who wants a job at a gas station?). People will definitely think twice about him, and not in a good way, when they find out about his fire history.

Why are people building way out there? It is terrible city planning. Massive sprawls of cookie cutter houses. Making houses further and further away harder for firemen to reach.

Instead of ugly stucco McMushroomMansions, high rises should be built. Make it 4o stories. 4 living spaces per floor, the cardinal directions. Thing of the views people would have. And then gardens would be around the high rise, acting as a buffer. There wouldn’t be miles and miles of roads, adding to global warming. Just think of how much smaller our eco footprint would be if we built like as opposed to having so many houses.

Come to think of it, he will be completely forgotten, the fires and destruction will be completely forgotten. The warnings, the anger, loss of life an property will be forgotten. And the people who were so angry will rebuild in the same exact places that are dry and fire prone and not maintain fire buffers. Maybe having your house burn down is how you pay the piper when you build in that area.

Posted on

Should Al Gore become a Vegan?

Al Gore is a huge, if not the biggest, champion of the fight against global warming. He did get the Nobel Peace Prize for his actions As the U.N. has stated “Raising animals for food, the report said, is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems…” To read more about it download this pdf.
So my question, raised by a video I watched on Youtube, is Al Gore a hypocrite if he is not a vegan or at least a vegetarian? Or has he raised enough awareness and caused enough people to shrink their carbon footprint enough to offset his meat diet?

Posted on

Dumbledore is gay

Who the #%@%#!@# cares if a fictional character (that might as well be asexual cuz the books are not about his love life) is gay ? Can you say free press? J.K. Rowling is probably worried that she is fading out of the limelight, well is she? I have no idea. I read the first book, thought it was okay and tried the second, but thought it was complete crap, so never finished it.

But dropping a “bomb” like this on the public seems like a way to get people all abuzz about the books again without having to write another one. Maybe there is a kid somewhere who hasn’t bought all the Potter books yet and this stunt is a way to squeeze a few more dollars out. This lady must be loaded. Isn’t the series over, yet? Are they going to be able to finish all the movies before the actors start having kids? Aren’t the actors already pushing their age range?