G. Ferris

hearing January 9th at Estabrook, on the CREG Center

A member of our household who no longer blogs sent this to me by email, and I decided to share it here. It’s about the proposed CREG Center, which seems not so much proposed as implemented without asking. At the links you will find dates, times, and places. We plan on attending.

SE Kiwanians,

Mulling over the effects of this incinerator proposal, I remembered that the Kiwanis Club of SE Cleveland had as one of its missions or objectives the mitigation or eradication of unnecessary causes of respiratory problems in humans. This gasification project will create problems with its incinerator itself; it will cause problems with the creation of diesel hot spots in areas affected by the 500+ additional trucks daily required to keep the plant at a break-even level; and it will also cause problems when the trash pellets it produces are burned again to produce electrical energy.

Not much attention has been paid to collateral costs to the community; this is not a green project, it will not create many jobs at all for the amount spent, and its an unproven technology promoted by an administration with no history of sensible undertakings.

There is a public hearing Monday on this issue, and it was mentioned in the PD just recently. I think that Kiwanis involvement is appropriate at this time, given the stated mission of the local chapter. The Ohio EPA is trying to sneak this one by the federal EPA; they are not acting in the best interests of the community, the way Gloria and I see it.

It affects the area in which your club operates; it is said that it should have an adverse impact up into the Cleveland Heights/Shaker Heights area.

Please see more about the hearing at the following links and if, after giving this stealth project a cursory inspection, you decide it might not be in the best interests of the people and businesses of the Cleveland area, please lend your support to efforts to promote health and wellness, which probably entails the scuttling of this gasification fiasco as soon as possible.

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/the-mysterious-mister-tien/Content?oid=2772517

http://topics.cleveland.com/tag/gasification/index.html

http://epa.ohio.gov/dapc/permitsonline.aspx

http://realneo.us/events/ohio-epa-hearing-city-cleveland-incinerator-monday-january-9th-2012-6-pm

http://ohiocitizen.org/?p=11256

http://www.friendsofbigcreek.org/CREGhearing9Jan2012.pdf

Note also that the PD editorial stance on this project is to be in full-cheerleader mode, as they sell full-page advertisements to this CREG group promoting the project. Conflicts of interest do not exist for the shameless. We hope to see as many of you as possible at the hearing, and later, in the fray. There are lives and property values in play here.

Cleveland Public Power - Count on it!

Perhaps we should have a naming contest for this new CREG Center. Someone in our household has proposed CRUD Center, which could perhaps stand for “Cleveland Recipe for Urban Disaster” Center, or something like that.

The Frnak Jackson administration: Count on it. (At least they’re predictable…)

What is msw? I know it is some kind of social-work degree, but what does it mean here?

Cleveland Recycling & Energy Generation Center

Cleveland Public Power is investing in an upcoming project, the CREG Center, an innovative facility that will recycle up to 25% of the msw collected and utilize the post recycled msw to generate power locally. The following are the documents related to the project.

Note: Ohio EPA Public Hearing on Cleveland’s gasification facility air permit will be held on January 9, 2012 at 6:00 p.m. at the Estabrook Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road, Cleveland. [Map]

1. CREG CENTER Information

2. Environmental Impacts

3. Consumer Education on Gasification of MSW

4. References

5. Research Documentation with Supporting Links

6. FAQ's

Home Privacy Policy Comments © MMVII-MMVIII

Cleveland Public Power - Count on it!

John Forbes Nash, Jr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting to note that he speaks of manipulation of people through perspectives currently promoted on money.

Nash has suggested hypotheses on mental illness. He has compared not thinking in an acceptable manner, or being "insane" and not fitting into a usual social function, to being "on strike" from an economic point of view. He has advanced evolutionary psychology views about the value of human diversity and the potential benefits of apparently nonstandard behaviors or roles.^[26]

Nash has developed work on the role of money in society. Within the framing theorem that people can be so controlled and motivated by money that they may not be able to reason rationally about it, he has criticized interest groups that promote quasi-doctrines based on Keynesian economics that permit manipulative short-term inflation and debt tactics that ultimately undermine currencies. He has suggested a global "industrial consumption price index" system that would support the development of more "ideal money" that people could trust rather than more unstable "bad money". He notes that some of his thinking parallels economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek's thinking regarding money and a nontypical viewpoint of the function of the authorities.^[

John Forbes Nash, Jr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New tax statutes will make it difficult for tax-compliant clients to live abroad - Financial Planning. - On Wall Street

Just one more word in the title of the bill, and the acronym would have become “FATCAT.” 

Starting in 2013, “Americans living abroad are going to find it very hard to maintain assets abroad,” said H. David Rosenbloom, director of the International Tax Program at the New York University School of Law. “There are a lot of repercussions for planners.”

At issue is a tax reform statute that passed in Congress to little public notice in March 2010 as part of a jobs bill. The so-called Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act seeks to retrieve billions of dollars in tax revenues that the U.S. government claims it loses annually to wealthy tax scofflaws who hide assets abroad.

New tax statutes will make it difficult for tax-compliant clients to live abroad - Financial Planning. - On Wall Street

Kasich, coalition of leaders woo Shell | The Columbus Dispatch

So, just how is Ohio fostering a “business-friendly climate”? Our personal experiences these past  30+ years have led us to a different conclusion about our current home state, which we feel is bad for business and for wealth-building. I wish this governor would enumerate exactly what the friendly practices are; we seem to have missed the salient points.

Included in the packet of letters was one from Kasich himself in which he refers to the incentives package he’s offering Shell to locate in Ohio. Terms of the offer were not available — the state signed a confidentiality agreement with Shell — but in the letter Kasich said “these incentives, combined with Ohio’s business-friendly climate, make Ohio the ideal location for this exciting project.”

Kasich, coalition of leaders woo Shell | The Columbus Dispatch

M.I.T. Expands Free Online Courses, Offering Certificates - NYTimes.com

Wow!

While students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pay thousands of dollars for courses, the university will announce a new program on Monday allowing anyone anywhere to take M.I.T. courses online free of charge — and for the first time earn official certificates for demonstrating mastery of the subjects taught.

“There are many people who would love to augment their education by having access to M.I.T. content, people who are very capable to earn a certificate from M.I.T.,” said L. Rafael Reif, the provost, in a conference call with reporters Friday.

M.I.T. led the way to an era of online learning 10 years ago by posting course materials from almost all its classes. Its free OpenCourseWare now includes nearly 2,100 courses and has been used by more than 100 million people.

But the new “M.I.T.x” interactive online learning platform will go further, giving students access to online laboratories, self-assessments and student-to-student discussions.

Mr. Reif and Anant Agarwal, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, said M.I.T.x would start this spring — perhaps with just one course — but would expand to include many more courses, as OpenCourseWare has done.

M.I.T. Expands Free Online Courses, Offering Certificates - NYTimes.com

Contrarian Consulting | Architect of Professional Communities® | Alan's Blog

Alan Weiss has written one of the best books there is on consulting. His Monday Morning Memos are pretty good, too. This one struck me more than most; italics and colorations are mine.

December 19, 2011—Issue #117

This week’s focus point: I’m writing this deliberately before the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots meet in a football game later today. If Denver quarterback Tim Tebow is on the winning side, with a record of 7-1 to this point, at 8-1 people will say he’s the “real thing” since the Patriots are a strong team. If he loses, all of his detractors will say, “I told you so.” But do you know what he’ll be properly called if his team loses? He’ll be called 7-2, still pretty fine! Leadership doesn’t have to be technically perfect. Leaders from Grant at Vicksburg to Welch at GE have made errors, and plenty of them. Leaders don’t have to charm people. Steve Jobs seldom did. Leadership is seldom about hierarchical position, expertise, or the ability to reward and punish. It’s about “referent power”: I admire you, believe in you, and intend to follow you. That results in commitment and not mere compliance. And it means ignoring the detractors who can’t even play the game.

Contrarian Consulting | Architect of Professional Communities® | Alan's Blog

American Airlines, Bankruptcy, and the Housing Bubble : The New Yorker

Another great piece by James Surowiecki addressing the dual standards prevailing for us, and for “them.” Read the whole thing.

According to one study, eighty-one per cent of Americans think it’s immoral not to pay your mortgage when you can, and the idea of default is shaped by what Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona, calls a discourse of “shame, guilt, and fear.” When the housing bubble burst, the banking industry was terrified by the possibility that homeowners might walk away en masse, since that would have stuck lenders with large losses and a huge number of marked-down homes. So strategic default was portrayed as the act of dishonorable deadbeats. David Walker, of the Peterson Foundation, waxed nostalgic about debtors’ prisons, and John Courson, the head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, argued that defaulters were sending the wrong message “to their family and their kids and their friends.”

Paying your debts is, as a rule, a good thing. But the double standard here is obvious and offensive. Homeowners are getting lambasted for doing what companies do on a regular basis. Walking away from real-estate obligations in particular is common in the corporate world, and real-estate developers are notorious for abandoning properties that no longer make economic sense. Sometimes the hypocrisy is staggering: last winter, the Mortgage Bankers Association—the very body whose president attacked defaulters for betraying their families and their communities—got its creditors to let it do a short sale of its headquarters, dumping it for thirty-four million dollars less than the value of the building’s mortgage.

When it comes to debt, then, the corporate attitude is do as I say, not as I do. And, while homeowners are cautioned to think of more than the bottom line, banks, naturally, have done business in coldly rational terms. They could have helped keep people in their homes by writing down mortgages (the equivalent of the restructuring that American Airlines’ debt holders will now be confronting). And there are plenty of useful ideas out there for how banks could do this without taxpayer subsidies and without rewarding the irresponsible. For instance, Eric Posner and Luigi Zingales, of the University of Chicago, suggest that, in exchange for writing down mortgages in hard-hit areas, lenders would take an ownership stake in a house, getting a percentage of the capital gain when it was eventually sold. Lenders, though, have avoided such schemes and haven’t done mortgage modifications on any meaningful scale. It’s their right to act in their own interest, but it makes it awfully hard to take seriously complaints about homeowners’ lack of social responsibility.

American Airlines, Bankruptcy, and the Housing Bubble : The New Yorker

FINRA fines Wells Fargo Investments for selling unsuitable notes to elderly clients - On Wall Street. - On Wall Street

Incredible story—dead customers, really really old customers, unauthorized trades. Note that this is one of those characters working out of bank branches. How much did Wells Fargo earn from Chen’s feeding frenzy on the public at large? Is the $2,000,000.00 fine just the cost of doing business? If Wells Fargo disgorged all profits, how much would that be?

FINRA hit Wells Fargo Investments with a $2 million fine and ordered the firm to pay restitution for making unsuitable sales of reverse convertibles to elderly clients and for not providing breakpoints on unit investment trust sales to eligible customers.

The regulatory agency also issued a complaint against former Wells Fargo registered rep, Alfred Chi Chen, who allegedly recommended the reverse convertibles and made unauthorized trades in several client accounts, including accounts of dead customers.

In the separate disciplinary complaint against the former rep, FINRA alleged that “Chen was so relentless in switching his customers, including the reverse convertible notes (RCN) customers, into reverse convertibles that he was Wells Fargo Investments second highest reverse convertible revenue producer in 2007, and in 2008 was the firm’s highest reverse convertible revenue producer.”

He was so successful, FINRA alleged, that Chen, who worked out of Wells Fargo bank branches, was promoted and given the title of vice president and senior financial consultant in April 2007.”

FINRA fines Wells Fargo Investments for selling unsuitable notes to elderly clients - On Wall Street. - On Wall Street

Apple`s Grand Central Terminal Store Opening Lures Holiday Shoppers - Mobile and Wireless - News & Reviews - eWeek.com

This is a beautiful “adaptive reuse” of a city space. Go see the slide show. The classic architecture showcases the modern Apple design.

NEW YORK – Apple boasts more than 300 retail stores across the world, including five in Manhattan with the opening of its new outlet in Grand Central Station. Located on the wide terrace overlooking the train station’s Main Concourse, and extending into a series of side rooms, the store doesn’t offer anything new on the traditional Apple store model: blonde wood tables hold rows of the company’s latest products, a Genius Bar tends to those with device issues, and glowing Apple logos loom over it all. Despite a lack of design novelty, customers turned out by the hundreds for the Grand Central store’s Dec. 9 opening, with some even lining up the day before.

Apple`s Grand Central Terminal Store Opening Lures Holiday Shoppers - Mobile and Wireless - News & Reviews - eWeek.com

2011 Advisor Hall of Fame

Interesting guy, just south of here.

Now in its 21st year, our eagerly awaited annual feature is a benchmark of excellence in the industry.

By Ellen Uzelac

From the December 2011 issue of Research Magazine

Gregory W. Kasten
Chief Executive Officer Unified Trust Co.
Career Began: 1985
Home Base: Lexington, Ky.
Civic Affiliations: Habitat for Humanity, United Way, Tates Creek Christian Church

When Gregory Kasten was an anesthesiologist in the mid-1980s,  he didn’t like the advice he was getting on the retirement plan offered through his private practice. It was biased, it was weighted toward high commission-type products, and the advisor appeared undone when Kasten pressed him on fee disclosure.

“I figured nobody cared about my own investments more than I would,” says Kasten. “I needed to examine these things myself.”

So Kasten, now 56, became a successful do-it-yourselfer who in small talk with other doctors began to realize that there were a whole lot of people who needed just what he was doing — and that they might actually pay a fee for it.

Today, Kasten heads the nationally chartered Unified Trust Co., which got its start as the aptly named Health Financial in Kasten’s basement in 1985. With 95 employees and $2.7 billion in assets under management, the company has experienced a single trajectory: up. The recent launch of Kasten’s cutting-edge UnifiedPlan — a managed-account platform that creates a pension-like experience for 401(k) plan participants — could take the firm to new heights.

“Obviously, we’d like to grow. We feel we have something extraordinary,” says Kasten, the author of Retirement Success. “We want to improve the outcome for more participants. We feel that’s our mandate.”

First, a number that isn’t at all encouraging. According to industry statistics, only 25 percent of retirement plan participants are on track to retire successfully. Over the last four years, Kasten with a team of developers and analysts have fine-tuned a software solution based on actuarial science to beat that number. Early results are promising.

In the first group of existing Unified Trust plans to complete the UnifiedPlan conversion process, the percentage of people on track to retire with adequate funds increased from 33 percent to 66 percent. Participants also experienced improved portfolio outcomes with less portfolio risk and better risk-tolerance matching. Plans new to Unified Trust saw an even bigger bump, from 11 percent to 66 percent.

The goal: to replace 70 percent of a person’s annual income in retirement.

“Most people spend more time thinking about what kind of flat screen TV they’re going to buy than modeling their retirement,” says Kasten, a certified pension consultant who has given hundreds of lectures on fiduciary best practices to pension professionals and federal banking regulators. “We figure out how much your retirement is going to cost along with a solution. By age 66, this method will produce the assets that match your liability.”

Every quarter, the program collects 700 data points on each participant. Those are then analyzed to make sure the person has a prudent asset allocation to stay on track. If changes are needed, Unified Trust makes them automatically. UnifiedPlan also combines personalized “intelligent defaults” such as automatic enrollment, savings increases and rebalancing portfolios with fiduciary oversight to improve participant success.

“This is Defined Benefit 101. It’s how a pension plan would have run in the ‘50s or ‘60s. There’s nothing magical about what we’re doing,” Kasten says. “But there are a lot of moving parts. What we are able to deliver is something advisors can’t do for themselves: provide a mass-produced, individualized pension experience.”

Kasten’s career path has been nothing if not unique. During his first seven years as an advisor, he both practiced medicine full-time and ran his fee-only business out of his home. “I always kid people that my wife said in 1992 that you can have one 60-hour week job, but you can’t have two,” says Kasten, a former officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps. When he left medicine to fully pursue an advisory career, Kasten had 300 clients and $70 million in assets under management.  In 1993, he hired receptionist Michele Hardesty. The day she started, they moved to an office space. Currently, 70 percent of Unified Trust’s business involves retirement plans; the rest, high-net-worth families.

Hardesty, now the company’s chief operations officer, calls Kasten “visionary” and “driven.”

“Greg is an incredible leader. Our underpinning is we are doing things the right way for the right reasons,” she says. “We’re not doing what everybody else does. We’re not structured the way everyone else is. We feel it’s kept us ahead of the industry.”

Next year, Unified Trust will offer UnifiedPlan to all of its 30,000 plan participants. Kasten is also introducing the product — which took more than 40,000 hours to develop — at industry trade shows.

Albert Einstein, Kasten likes to point out, is quoted as saying the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. He believes most 401(k) plans fall into that category.

“Statements may be a different color or a website will change but companies basically are doing the same thing over and over again. There’s never been any real change in how many people are able to retire successfully,” he says. “This gives a solution. It figures it out. It’s not theory. We can show conclusively this works. We’re trying to get past that definition of insanity.” 

Hall of Fame Judges

1. RONALD L. DELEGGE is the editor of ETFguide.com and has contributed Research magazine’s Exchange-Traded Products Reporter since 2004. He worked as an investment advisor for 11 years and lives in Southern California with his wife. His new book is Gents With No Cents: A Closer Look at Wall Street, Its Customers, Financial Regulators, and the Media (Half Full Publishing).
2. KENNETH L. FISHER is chairman and CEO of Fisher Investments, which manages $36 billion in assets. He has been “Portfolio Strategy” columnist at Forbes for 27 years. His latest book is Markets Never Forget (But People Do): How Your Memory Is Costing You Money — and Why This Time Isn’t Different (Wiley).
3. JAY NAGDEMAN is president of Suasion Resources (www.suasion.com), a marketing consulting firm to the financial services industry. He is author of The Professional’s Guide to Financial Services Marketing: Bite-Sized Insights for Creating Effective Approaches (Wiley).

 

2011 Advisor Hall of Fame

Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time - ProPublica

Now we begin the process of conserving our true wealth.

In a first, federal environment officials today scientifically linked underground water pollution with hydraulic fracturing, concluding that contaminants found in central Wyoming were likely caused by the gas drilling process.

The findings by the Environmental Protection Agency come partway through a separate national study by the agency to determine whether fracking presents a risk to water resources.

 

Multimedia

Drilling Regulatory Staffing in Your State

• 
• Search for how many wells have been drilled and how many gas regulators are in your state.

Graphics

• 
• What is Hydraulic Fracturing?
• 
• Anatomy of a Gas Well

Slideshows

• 
• A Reporter’s Journey
• 
• The Faces of Dimock

Video

• 
• Fracking: The Music Video

</:ASIDE>

In the 121-page draft report released today, EPA officials said that the contamination near the town of Pavillion, Wyo., had most likely seeped up from gas wells and contained at least 10 compounds [1] known to be used in frack fluids.

Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time - ProPublica

Speculative reasons why smart people drink more — food, wine, beer, culture

The link to this came through THE WEEK.

First, as a duly self-appointed representative and self-classified ‘very bright’ individual who also happens to enjoy booze, I feel it’s my job to speculate (any other self-appointed representatives, feel free to weigh in).  I, personally, like the quote by George Jean Nathan stating that ‘I drink to make other people interesting’.  Booze is one of those great equalizers.  It softens the critical mind of some, letting them be less anxious and more tolerant of other people and topics who would normally be found to be irritating.  For others who are, or who’s interests and attention is narrowly focused, it loosens inhibitions and allows them to be more creative.  There’s a reason Plato and his philosopher buddies would sit around, drinking copious amounts of wine and philosophizing, and this is exactly it.   There are also some (though widely unknown) neurological mechanisms at play here.  While alcohol has well known behavioral effects as an anxiolytic and sedative substance, it appears to work globally around the brain, acting on a subtype of inhibitory receptor called the GABAa receptor.  This receptor mediates quick acting inhibition on neurons, essentially making them less likely to fire an action potential, in terms of what we care about, less likely to work or pass along information.  But what does this have to do with the topic of this post?

Plenty.  It’s difficult not to anthropomorphize what is happening in the brain.  Alcohol makes it’s merry way up there,where it enhances the ability of this receptor to shut down the cell it’s on, basically quieting the brain a bit, but notably areas in the prefrontal cortex, that control your ‘executive’ behaviors.  What are these?  Well, science has found that, in a nut shell, your prefrontal cortex inhibits you from doing all that stupid, random, offensive, distasteful, inappropriate behaviors that you normally don’t do.  Damage this area, and you’re going to become a swearing, anti-social, socially inappropriate person… the kind of person people don’t want to hang out with.  What does alcohol do?  It inhibits this area from inhibiting your generally dumb ideas, letting you loosen up a bit, say things you might not normally have said, tolerate things you wouldn’t normally tolerate and make dares and decisions you would have thought were downright silly, when you were sober.  Given these reasons, it seems obvious why intelligent people drink more!

We booze so we can tolerate everyone else.  Where before we tend to take people’s responses at literal face value, now we can relax a bit, stop being so anal with semantics and let comments slide a bit.  We change our normally myopic and narrow focus of the world into a (slightly more) global view, and perhaps we’ll even let others a few chances to express viewpoints that we don’t normally hold.  Of course, when we sober up all this openness is gone, but hey, that’s why we drink more.  To normalize ourselves into tolerating the normally droll and mundane conversations and viewpoints of the ‘normal’ or ‘dull’ people of the world (to use the original study’s terminology).  While this seems to fly in the face of the stereotypes of drunk poor people, hey, it’s science.  Maybe years ago those stereotypes were true, in the times when Oscar Wilde made his famous quote that ‘Working is the curse of the drinking class’.  But today, times are changing.  And backed with scientific longitudinal studies, we know the real answer.  Intelligent people tend to drink more than normal or very ‘dull’ people.

So the next time you’re in a bar and you see someone sitting along, downing a bunch of beers or some whiskey, don’t think to yourself ‘typical, damn drunk Irish’.  Think to yourself ‘ahh, an intelligent person is trying to make himself tolerable to the rest of the world!’ and go over and help him out.  Buy him a shot.  He may turn out to be a drunk bum, or the department chair of a research institute.  Either way, you’re doing your part in helping humanity.  As for me, I think I’ll relax and have another beer.

Speculative reasons why smart people drink more — food, wine, beer, culture

Congress Just Classified PIZZA As A Vegetable (And I’m Boiling Mad)

We were just talking about this yesterday, this and the overwhelming conflicted interests of the people we’ve elected to stand in our place in our government. There are overtones here of Orwell’s 1984, which used to stand for the implausible and horrible future for us when we were kids in school, but now is 27 years in the rearview mirror.

I’m a pretty even-tempered guy most of the time…

… but as a nutritionist, what I saw on the news today really makes my blood boil
… and I’m not going to sit here and be quiet about it a second longer…

Congress just declared that PIZZA is a vegetable!

That’s right, those sneaky American lawmakers have ruled that anything containing a measly two tablespoons of (processed) tomato paste can be labeled as a vegetable in our public schools… so now, our kids can stuff themselves with MORE pizza instead of say… broccoli or a salad or peas, etc…

Hip-hip hooray! [Sarcasm]

What’s next, is a hot fudge sundae going to be counted as a fruit because it has a cherry on top?

What’s more… if you put two tablespoons of tomato paste (ketchup) on a huge cheeseburger… is that now a vegetable, too?

It’s no wonder our country is becoming so sick and tired…

Now I bet you’re wondering how in the world congress came to this bone-headed decision…

If you guessed GREED then you hit the nail on the head…

Here’s the deal:

The Department of Agriculture was seeking to restrict pizza, chips and starchy vegetables from the menu for school children in a bid to battle childhood obesity. (Our kids are so unhealthy and overweight these days that it’s a tragedy.)

Well, it turns out politicians had been lobbied heavily by the frozen food industry who didn’t want to see a major revenue stream cut off… given how often pizza is found on the menus of school cafeterias in the US.

But school meals subsidized by the government are mandated to include a certain amount of vegetables and the Department of Agriculture’s plan would have pushed pizza-makers at least partly out of the school lunch business opting for REAL vegetables.

So in a nut shell, the frozen food lobbyists bought off our congress and now pizza is considered a veggie in our schools.

And this is just the tip of the ice berg… this is the same way that toxic ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, trans fats and MSG get laced into our foods these days…

I’m sick of lobbyists “legally bribing” elected officials to make decisions that make the big fat cats rich and put our health in jeopardy.

I thought elected officials were supposed to be “lobbying” for our health and safety… I think it’s high time to write a letter to my congressman…

In the mean time… I’m going to go eat some real vegetables…

I hope you’ll forgive my rant… but someone had to stand up and say something about this…

Congress Just Classified PIZZA As A Vegetable (And I’m Boiling Mad)

President Obama Insured Against Attack While in Australia

In a related story, insurer offers accidental-poisoning policy for crocodiles.

This coverage isn’t the U.S. health care law.

When President Barack Obama visits Australia’s Northern Territory today, he will be presented with insurance coverage against attack — crocodile attack.

The territory’s chief minister, Paul Henderson, said he will give Obama the unusual policy when the president arrives in the remote tropical city of Darwin.

Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory which boasts the largest crocodile numbers in Australia. The local TIO insurance company offers a 50,000 Australian dollar ($51,000 U.S.) insurance policy against crocodile attack within the region. The novelty certificates, at a price of 10 Australian dollars, make popular souvenirs among tourists.

“We’ve got the crocodile insurance ready to go for Michelle and the kids — 50 grand if the president does get taken,” Henderson told Sky TV. “We don’t think that’s going to happen, but it should provide a little bit of reassurance.’

President Obama Insured Against Attack While in Australia

New Analyses Show Oil and Gas Industry Is Inflating the Job-Creating Potential of Shale Gas Development | Food & Water Watch

In any war, the first casualty is the truth.

Food & Water Watch Study Shows One Job Claim Exaggerated by 900 Percent

Washington, D.C.— Will the oil and gas industry create 1 million new jobs for Americans, as its latest advertisement claims? The American Petroleum Institute and major oil and gas corporations are spending millions to convince Americans that with unrestricted access to natural resources, they can lift us from our economic slump in part by fracking our nation’s shale gas reserves. But Exposing the Oil and Gas Industry’s False Jobs Promise for Shale Gas Development, a new set of analyses released today by the national consumer advocacy organization Food & Water Watch, finds that the oil and gas industry is exaggerating the capacity of shale gas development to generate jobs and economic opportunity for Americans, in one case exaggerating projected job creation by 900 percent.

“The oil and gas industry has tried to stand on three legs, claiming that shale gas is good for the environment, good for American energy security and good for the economy. The first two legs have already been kicked out, and our new analysis kicks out the third,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “They have no legs left to stand on.”

A 2011 report by the Public Policy Institute of New York State (PPINYS) claimed that by 2018, developing 500 new shale gas wells each year in five counties in New York would create 62,620 jobs. Food & Water Watch closely examined the PPINYS report and found it riddled with flaws; in fact, the economic forecasting model that PPINYS used actually only supported a claim of 6,656 jobs. PPINYS inflated the job-creation potential of shale gas development by almost 900 percent. According to Food & Water Watch, even the corrected PPINYS jobs projection is overly optimistic because it fails to account for negative effects that shale gas development would have on other key parts of the economy, such as agriculture and tourism.

New Analyses Show Oil and Gas Industry Is Inflating the Job-Creating Potential of Shale Gas Development | Food & Water Watch

Food Fight: Top Chef's Roast - WSJ.com

Didn’t mince words:

Asked about his choices for "Person of the Year," Mr. Batali mentioned Steve Jobs and food writer Michael Pollan before citing his top choice: bankers.

"I would have to say that…who's had the largest effect on the whole planet without us really paying attention across the board and everywhere is the entire banking industry and their disregard of the people they're supposed to be working for," according to a Time magazine video of the event.

He added that, "the way the bankers have kind of toppled the way money is distributed and taken most of it into their own hands is as…as good as Stalin or Hitler and the evil guys that you guys…have. They're not heroes, they're just people who have really had a huge effect on the way the world is operating."

News of the comments, earlier reported by Forbes, quickly lit up the trading terminals on Wall Street and momentarily overshadowed talk of Italian bond spreads. Coming amid the Occupy Wall Street protests and war on the 1%, many bankers said the tirade from one of their favorite chefs was a step too far. Two bankers interviewed Wednesday said they canceled reservations at Batali establishments and several said they would never book a Batali table again.

"What an insult!" one trader blast-emailed to colleagues. "I must have spent more than $5,000 on his stupid black truffles over the years, and now he says I'm Hitler?!"

Added another senior banker: "I don't intend to go to his restaurants for some time. It is a crazy thing to say and it could actually kill off his business."

Other current and former Wall Streeters took the insult more in stride.

"It does seem like a strange thing to say from someone who has benefitted from the largesse of the banking community over the years," said Peter Kend, a former banker and restaurateur. "But I still think he's a fantastically talented chef."

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Batali wrote: "To remove any ambiguity about my appearance at yesterday's Time Person of the Year panel, I want to apologize for my remarks. It was never my intention to equate our banking industry with Hitler and Stalin, two of the most evil, brutal dictators in modern history." He declined further comment.

Food Fight: Top Chef's Roast - WSJ.com

Al Franken: Net Neutrality Is Under Attack... Again

I have a strange bedfellow.

This week, the free and open Internet millions of Americans have come to depend on is under attack.

In a procedural move, Senate Republicans are trying to overturn the rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put in place late last year to help protect net neutrality -- the simple idea that all content and applications on the Internet should be treated the same, regardless of who owns the content or the website. The House already pushed through this dangerous legislation, which would effectively turn control of the Internet over to a handful of very powerful corporations.

I sincerely hope the Senate doesn't follow suit, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure this terrible legislation never reaches the President's desk.

While millions of Americans have become familiar with the concept of net neutrality, it's important that we're all on the same page. Net neutrality isn't a government takeover of the Internet, as many of my Republican colleagues have alleged. It isn't even a change from what we have now. Net neutrality has been in place since the very beginning of the Internet.

This isn't a radical concept -- it's what each and every one of us experiences every time we use the Internet. Right now, an e-mail from a friend arrives in your inbox just as quickly and reliably as an advertisement from Amazon.com. Consumers can go online and make a reservation at a small fishing lodge in Ely, Minnesota just as quickly as they can at the Hilton.

But many Republicans want to change that so that the large corporations they represent can increase their profit margins at the expense of small businesses and consumers.

To illustrate why net neutrality is so critical to innovation on the web, I like to tell the story of a small online startup that launched in 2005 above a pizzeria in San Francisco. It had a product that now seems simple: it allowed people to upload videos so others could stream them. It was called YouTube -- you may have heard of it.

At the time, Google had a similar product -- Google Video -- but it wasn't as easy to use, so consumers took their business to YouTube. The site took off and, less than two years after it launched, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.6 billion. Not a bad payday.

But it wouldn't have been possible without net neutrality. If Google had been able to pay Comcast and other large Internet service providers to prioritize its data -- and make YouTube's videos load more slowly -- YouTube wouldn't have stood a chance. Google's inferior product would have won.

Last year, the FCC took action to protect net neutrality, establishing a set of rules designed to preserve the status quo -- the rules under which YouTube and thousands of other start-ups flourished. While those rules didn't do nearly as much as I would have liked to protect consumers, encourage innovation, and keep the Internet fully free, they at least laid a foundation to preserve the basic principles of net neutrality.

These are the rules Republicans in the House have already voted to overturn. This week, my Republican colleagues in the Senate will attempt to short circuit the legislative process by forcing a procedural vote and ignoring the FCC's expertise on this issue. They hope to abolish net neutrality and give their supporters in big telecom what they want: an unfair advantage over small businesses and bigger profits at the expense of consumers.

I've said that net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. It's true. If Republicans have their way, large corporations won't just have the loudest voices in the room. They'll be able to effectively silence everyone else.

Every small business they'd prefer not to compete with. Every blogger who publishes something they don't like.

We have to stop them.

Al Franken: Net Neutrality Is Under Attack... Again

Highland Park, Michigan Tearing Out Its Streetlights To Cut Costs

Great idea.

Highland Park, Michigan, a city in the greater Detroit area, is the latest town to implement dramatic austerity measures, according to the Associated Press.

With $58 million in municipal debt and a $60,000 monthly electric bill that it can't pay, Highland Park has elected to remove 1,000 of its 1,500 streetlights -- not just turning the power off, but tearing the poles themselves out of the ground.

It's a strategy that's unlikely to fix most of Highland Park's economic woes. The town's unemployment rate is 22 percent -- more than twice the national rate -- and 42 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

Still, Highland Park needs to trim expenses, and it isn't the first town to turn off its lights in the name of doing so. Clintonville, Wisconsin has stopped operating 10 percent of its streetlights, reportedly saving $7,000, according to local news station WHBL. Santa Rosa is in the midst of a four-year effort to remove thousands of streetlights, and similar steps have been taken in North Andover, Massachusetts; Montgomery, Pennsylvania; and South Portland, Maine, according to USA Today.

Highland Park, Michigan Tearing Out Its Streetlights To Cut Costs

Mixed Up on The Right Asset Mix - SmartMoney.com

Interesting discussion—"advisers are all over the map,”  as  the writer states at the outset.

For investors willing to take on moderate risk, planners in theSmartMoney survey, on average, recommended devoting 18 percent of a portfolio to alternative assets and including a mix of commodity-related plays and investments that reduce the volatility of the portfolio through assets that don't move in the same direction as stocks or bonds. Some funds do the mixing for investors, such as the Van Eck Multi-Manager Alternatives fund or the Aston/Lake Partners LASSO Alternatives fund. But both have limited track records as mutual funds, and they don't come cheap, with annual expenses of almost $300 for every $10,000 invested.

Mixed Up on The Right Asset Mix - SmartMoney.com

Tremont artist Robert Ritchie remembered as a 'loveable trainwreck' | cleveland.com

Annie’s friend Robert had no competition. We still have some of his artifacts, someplace. They were dark, stark, and smeared. Michael Heaton has performed a necessary task here. I will include comments as well, because they support the integrity of the work.

Joanie Devaney

Artist Robert Ritchie, 52, was found dead at the residence of a friend in Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood two weeks ago. Ritchie was a painter, poet, sculptor and performance artist whose dazzling works of art were matched only by his outrageous behavior.

Besides his artistic talent, sense of humor, generosity and dedication to the life of the starving artist, he was known for living on other people's couches, selling his work for beer money and burning bridges with his benefactors. Ritchie was short, elfin in stature and had a speech impediment which made his R's sound like W's. He would pronounce his own name "Wobuwt Witchie."

He grew up one of five kids in North Royalton. His dad was in the meatpacking business, his mom was an artist. His sister-in-law said he scared neighborhood kids with performance art pieces like rubbing himself with mercury from broken thermometers at the tender age of 10.

He lived to make art. He created assemblages. He could make a work of art out of anything. He once did a series of bicycles covered meticulously in pieces of colored broken glass. He was boldly experimental in everything that he did. He went for shock as much as beauty in his pieces.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, Ritchie embodied the spirit of the crazed, self-destructive art genius. His star burned brightly on the Cleveland scene. He worked in every medium. He was often included in group shows and performances at Cleveland Public Theatre. He was profiled in the alternative weeklies. He achieved one-name fame. People in the art world called him simply "Robert."

Eventually the booze and drugs eclipsed the talent, and he became more famous for being 86'ed from bars showing his work and for passing out on the sidewalks of Tremont during monthly ArtWalks.

"Robert was a lovable train wreck," said Tim Herron, friend and fellow artist, at a service for Ritchie. On Oct. 21, 50 friends and colleagues gathered outside in Tremont's Lincoln Park to honor the artist.

Surrounded by luminaria lights and with Karen Carpenter (a Ritchie favorite) on a boombox in the background, artist/poet Steven B. Smith spoke about his friend.

"He was a great cartoonist, a good artist, and he often failed as a human being. But he was loyal to friends, always happy to see you, generous with his drugs and alcohol and possessions and art, usually interesting, always original, and frequently funny.

"Over a period of 25 years he published my poems and collages in most of his Cleveland Rag-o-zeens and I published him 13 times in ArtCrimes.

"He lived decades longer than most of us thought he would, abusing himself all the way. Yet he died in his sleep on a friend's couch, so I'd say that's the best that can be expected, and he won that game."

After Smith, Robert's ex-wife, Desiree Darton, spoke. She read from a letter that Ritchie had written May 19, 2000, to Sydney, his then-16-year-old daughter. Here is an excerpt to the letter, provided by Darton:

"Well Syd, I guess this is a waste of time writing this cus [sic] you'll probably just throw it away before reading it. Well now I am a high school drop out, an art school drop out and a drunk and I guess I must be a [bad] artist because I'm poor as dirt. I can't even find a job at Burger King (would you hire me?)

"Any ways the only thing I get from art is free booze (everyone likes to get artists drunk or at least they used to.) I do wish that I could do more for you, but I could barely take care of myself.

"I'm basically homeless and I can hardly sell my paintings, cause everyone thinks that I am a drunk (and they're right.) To tell you the truth back when you were born I wasn't ready for a kid. I do love you and always hope the best for you. I guess it's hard for me to realize you're growing up. I miss the little dancer and the little girl that helped me at Cleveland Public Theatre.

"I hope you can use me as a very bad example of a adult. Stay away from booze, drugs, art. Hopefully you got your Mom's good traits and none of my bad ones.

"Love, Robert"

Darton also brought a letter that Sydney, now 27 and living in Connecticut, asked her to read at his service. She wrote it upon learning of her father's death. It has been edited for space.

"Your life was about performance, so today sitting under the sun I'm writing my goodbye. First off I'm so sorry I can't be there and I'm sorry I haven't seen you in a few years. . . .

"Five days after you passed I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy Domenyck Robert Darton. I believe that you are him, that all of the good in you went into him. My way of making amends to you is to be the best mother I can be. I will raise him in a home where drugs and alcohol are never glorified. I will pass on creative thinking, poetry, art and music.

"Also to make amends I will be good to myself, live to my potential, be sober, and no longer live the way you did. I have a new beginning, a changed life. . . .

"You were a good man, extremely talented, funny, wise, loving, unique, definitely one of a kind. I hate that Domenyck will never meet you, but he will know you through your art, and the many memories I hold of you.

"I love you, dad. I miss you. Bye."

______________________________________________________________

 

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Alice Dickson October 30, 2011 at 10:36AM

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Very touching...

Jay-B October 30, 2011 at 11:01AM

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I only saw him perform once, probably 20 years ago when he opened for Jim Carroll, who was doing a poetry reading. At some point during his opening act, Robert was onstage wearing only a condom. During Jim Carroll's performance, Robert was drunk and slouched against a wall. He yelled to Jim, "You made me what I am!" Jim responded without missing a beat, "Man, I'm sorry."

To give credit where it's due, it was obviously a performance that I have never forgotten.

rocknancy October 30, 2011 at 11:56AM

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What a sad but touching story. A "mad" genius to be sure. I hope his daughter finds peace; sounds like she has.
Thanks for a story well written Michael.

hikermick October 30, 2011 at 1:14PM

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Somewhere in heaven a couch is getting soiled.

Carol_Janes_1 October 30, 2011 at 3:36PM

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Does anyone know if he ever attended Berkshire schools in Burton, OH????

rightyleft October 31, 2011 at 3:30AM

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You forgot to mention the chicken attachment piece of art that dangled from his member some years ago.

Tremont artist Robert Ritchie remembered as a 'loveable trainwreck' | cleveland.com

Why Is the Obama Administration Enabling Retirement Rip-offs? - The Huffington Post

This is one of the most ignorant articles I have ever seen about annuities.  It seems to be have a political orientation—short on truth, heavy on FUD. Who is Jane White and why does she have a pulpit here? Here’s what The Huffington Post says: “Jane White is the founder and president of Retirement Solutions, LLC an advocacy organization dedicated to 401(k) retirement adequacy and the author of “America, Welcome to the Poorhouse,” (FT Press, 2009), which has been favorably reviewed by...” After the ellipsis, there is silence, and no link.

And here’s Jane’s thumbnail, in case you ever run into her on the street.

And here’s the ignorant article in full, in case it’s taken down by the Huffington platform:

The Treasury Department will soon be releasing guidance on "providing and encouraging lifetime income options" to 401(k) participants by encouraging the use of annuities, according to Mark Iwry, deputy assistant treasury secretary for retirement and health policy. Said Iwry: "We are trying to put pensions back in the pension system," according to the Bureau of National Affairs.

Really? Or more likely, rather than requiring employers to make 401(k) plans as generous as pensions, the Obama Administration appears to be duping older workers into thinking they are ready -- despite the fact that they have only saved one-tenth of what they need -- and simply need a product that will stretch their puny nest egg over a lifetime. To make matters worse, it is exposing workers to annuities, the biggest financial rip-off on the planet.

Why are annuities toxic? As an annuity owner you're not only paying a fortune for an investment product that can't fill an empty nest egg but you'll likely be charged huge penalties if you move your money out of one and if you die there's a good chance the insurance company is the beneficiary, not your spouse. The losers are the surviving spouses who will no longer be able to access the annuity to pay expenses, despite the fact that that's the point of buying one in the first place.

What's astounding is that the Treasury Department is going ahead with this annuity scam despite the fact that as a result of being bribed by Wall Street, many members of Congress may prevent Assistant Secretary of Labor Phyllis Borzi from requiring anyone advising 401(k) participants to act as a fiduciary, or in the best interests of their customers.

How did this come to pass? Amazingly, all of the comments Treasury received on its proposal were favorable because they must have come from the insurance industry or the agents that generate commissions from selling their products.

Apparently Treasury didn't invite any of the 1.5 million teachers at the nation's public schools to provide input. A lawsuit filed in 2007 contended that the National Education Association, one of the largest teachers unions, breached its duty to its members by accepting millions of dollars in payments from two financial firms who recommended annuities, according to the New York Times. Lawyers for the plaintiffs estimate that fees paid might exceed $2 million a year.

Nor did Treasury appear to contact Dan Otter, a teacher who runs 403bwise, a website aimed at educating teachers about the fees on these products, who told the Times, "There is an army of agents trolling school districts across the country selling high-fee variable annuities." Teachers typically pay 2% a year in fees on annuities compared to about 1.25% when it comes to regular mutual funds and even less for index funds.

Nor did it appear to reach out to Rep. Rob Andrews, who was so disgusted that employees at many small companies are stuck with annuities that he sought legislation that would give them access to low-cost mutual funds offered by the Thrift Plan, which covers many government workers.

But perhaps the most unconscionable aspect of this annuity fraud is the man behind it, former Wall Street tycoon Robert Rubin, who dreamed up the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution, where Iwry used to work. As former Treasury Secretary under Clinton from 1995 to 1999, Rubin opposed regulating derivatives and backed the 1999 law that deregulated Wall Street, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, just as he was departing to take up a job heading up Citigroup, which benefited from the new law by permitting banks to sell insurance. 1999 was also the year that Citigroup (then Citicorp) launched its "Live Richly" advertising campaign, encouraging homeowners to drain the equity from their homes, causing home equity loans to skyrocket to $1 trillion at a point when home values were at record low levels, according to the New York Times. Rubin's legacy? While he's currently living richly, having raked in more than $126 million in cash and stock during his eight years at Citigroup, the rest of us are facing pension poverty and shriveling home equity.

If you agree that we need to reverse the financial disservice industry's bloodless coup of Capitol Hill along with reversing our retirement shortfall, please take the following steps: Contact the White House and convey your disapproval of the annuity scam or merely send a link to this blog at this website. And please join fellow blogger, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan's commendable effort to keep money out of politics, which is the reason why too many politicians are not only opposing the fiduciary rule but any reform that makes big business behave itself. Go to his Get Money Out website and sign the petition to get money out of politics.

Why Is the Obama Administration Enabling Retirement Rip-offs? - The Huffington Post

Urban Dictionary: 212

 

212

An adjective to describe a situation, location, and/or person that possesses an inherently chill nature, as well as a force field that guards against drama, anxiety, and all that is uncool.

Urban Dictionary: 212

Meet the folks re-evaluating the state's main consumer law | cleveland.com

Coley and Brenner are such little whores. Illogical, too.

Two downstate senators introduced a bill Monday that would exempt banks and credit unions from the state's usury laws if they have competition from higher-priced competitors.

Senate Bill 218 would allow banks chartered in Ohio to charge the same interest rates and fees as similar institutions from out of state who do business here.

Usury limits are set by states. The Supreme Court has ruled that financial institutions can import the rates allowed by their home state to other states where they do business.

Under this bill, if a bank located in another state charges higher rates to its Ohio customers, Ohio banks could skirt the state's limits on interest rates and fees and match that higher rate for its customers here.

(Didn't competition used to drive down prices?)

In a letter seeking co-sponsors, Sen. Bill Coley (who sponsored the measure in the Senate with Bill Seitz) and Rep. Andrew Brenner said the bill would entice banks to be come chartered here, "making Ohio the banking capital of the Midwest."

It's hard to see how, since banks chartered elsewhere can already import higher rates.

"This anti-consumer, pro-banks bill would make it possible for banks to raise credit card rates and other loan rates to match higher rates in other states. How is this good for consumers?" said Rep. Matt Lundy of Elyria, who vowed oppose Brenner's House version, H.B. 322.

Meet the folks re-evaluating the state's main consumer law | cleveland.com

Cain Plan's Reagan-Era Roots - WSJ.com

It says here that Rich Lowrie is from our area—I’m assuming they mean Cleveland, Ohio, and not Cleveland, Tennessee. As for Arthur Laffer, he hails from around here, too. One thing about Cain—he’s taking the dialogue places that other politicians won’t go.

In practice, Mr. Lowrie's design combines two ideas that have figured prominently in conservative tax debates in recent years. One idea is a flat tax (Mr. Laffer for years has championed this idea.) The other is a national sales tax.

Herman Cain described his 9-9-9 tax plan as one that will raise as much money as the current system, maybe more, and have more people paying taxes. John McKinnon on The News Hub discusses whether the plan really adds up.

Admirers see it as a breath of fresh air in what is often a stultifying debate over how to rewrite the mammoth U.S. tax code. Many conservative economists have praised the Cain approach's shift to taxing consumption while encouraging savings and investment. But some business people—particularly retailers but also home builders—cringe at the prospect of a national sales tax. And liberals worry it would raise taxes on lower-income people,or deepen the current deficits, or maybe both.

Mr. Lowrie, a 47-year-old wealth-management adviser for Wells Fargo Advisors in the Cleveland area, has studied conservative tax theory for years. He has known Mr. Laffer for about 20 years through his work, he said. He first encountered Mr. Cain at a conservative conference in 2004. When Mr. Cain was looking for an economic adviser, Mr. Lowrie said he was excited by the opportunity. A Cain campaign spokesman confirmed details of Mr. Lowrie's account, including the development of the 9-9-9 plan.

Mr. Lowrie doesn't have an advanced economics degree, but said that isn't a hindrance. "You don't need a Ph.D. to understand a few simple truths of economics, any more than you need a Ph.D. to know what will happen when you hold a bowling ball over your foot and drop it," he said.

A longtime collector of Ronald Reagan campaign buttons, Mr. Lowrie has cultivated a smaller collection of baseballs signed by his economics heroes, including Mr. Laffer. "These are my go-to guys," he said.

Cain Plan's Reagan-Era Roots - WSJ.com