Job's, Jobs, jobs

The Book of Job in the Bible famously demonstrates the bet between Satan and God as to whether a true devotee can be made to foreswear the Lord.

 

Of course, after brutal trials, Job, eventually, liberated from false attachments finally receives the full blessing from Life having turned away from Temptations.

 

Sad, that the eponymous word for Livelihood, is slang for Faustian Test.  So, every day in employment is a challenge from Hell, under that thinking?

 

Too bad.

 

 

We need to rethink entirely the nature of Livelihood.  What is your pre-occupation, your occupation and animus where you are of highest and best use to Society, with the least cost to your health, wealth and soul.

 

Many people facing this Pandemic Crisis in the economy, like me, are reassessing what arethe actual Jobs and Job descriptions of the future going to become?

 

That said, before we earnestly discuss the Green New Deal, or any other Major Effort, let’s re-enshrine the Bill of Rights with a little history tour of how we come to the arrangement of being totally dependent upon a $14/hr. worker for distribution of goods and services that may have become so urgent, important and valuable, because of the exaggerated and impacted resource availability problems.

 

 

In 1215, The Lord descended from Heaven, signed a piece of paper with the Dukes and Barons of England, and admitted He was a human King.  Every squire, knave, groom and peasant within a Mile of Runnymede was promptly murdered for having witnessed the event.

 

From there, democracy in the modern American sense was born.  Flash cut to 250 years later, or there about, and we have the fundamental flaw in our Agrarian-style macro-economic theory.  A Serf is born, and he will be raised, live, then die as an attached beast of the land.  Probably not leaving to the capital London if once, they remained within about a 20-mile radius from where they were born.

 

They were often classed into task groups, and seasonally or during crisis tasks would be completely reassigned... all with little to no say by the Serf.  They were beasts to be manipulated, resources to be controlled and conquered, and base value of the farmlands, as pheasants improve the value of the Royal Forests.

 

It is only in this 21^stCentury where people have been born in ignorant bliss of Freedom and Liberty, and now are surprised by the hard and cruel facts of geopolitical macroeconomics.

 

The contrasts in this era are probably as about as stark as they may have ever been, only because they have never been more observable, simultaneously and worldwide.

 

So, the replay of the signing of the Magna Carta would have been videoed, and upon further review a human who was dressed as King signed a piece of paper.

 

 

Myths are being destroyed every day, and life can be very grim.

 

So, in redesigning and repurposing your livelihood, consider that your good work for other, hopefully helps to build a better future, a nicer present and a more pleasant understanding of the hard choices that came from the past.

 

We will get past all of this, because we process the economy individually and collectively, daily.

 

But, next time you get some fast food, now that the fragilities, weaknesses and errors of our macroeconomy are on display, maybe consider leaning on the tip.  Tip a nurse or care worker; or bring them some flowers; or a soda.  We humans are all in this together!

 

Not random acts of kindness, rather design your livelihood for purposeful kindnesses that you like to make and are good at doing.

 

Then maybe your jobwill just be a fair bargain with other people, without need for tests from outside powers?

 

Vision: Steady, safe and sane livelihoods; Multiple training pathways, nimble enough for lateral transfer, and ideally all correlated; and each employee with long-term prospects and full benefits.

 

What will you become in this trial?

A New FHA for Consumer Credit: Deficit Neutral and No New Taxes Required

QUALIFIED FEDERAL CONSUMER LOAN PROGRAM PROPOSAL
(CLP) 1-50K

Premiss. In today’s economic reality debt is an admissable “sin,” that is not only permitted, rather it is encouraged on the whole by church and state, so simply we are told to spend, buy, and consume... and this we do.

Debt is a modern reality for every individual, family, and even local government!

As such, we must see that an eighteen year old today looking to become a “college educated,” independent person must then be admittting to entree of no less than $50,000.00 of debt ceiling in a very humble estimate of “standard,” education.

If we are expected to have an “average” college level of training, and earn a “reasonable” salary, then we should pretty much be planning with debt as a reality, not an “escape, or emergency.”

By dealing with debtor’s thinking only in crisis type situation we create and engage in unrealistic, non-methodological, and, often, rash decisions and decision making processes.

This applies to the emblematic purchases, such as mementos, and translates all the way through to extraordinary purchases (home, auto, business, etc.).

So, even college educated, especially the most recently graduated, speaking as the last ‘wave’ (or two) of persons graduated in a similarly desperate Employment Situation, I was similarly disappointed for many reasons (1995, not being the best day to enter into the “economy,” laden with debt loads that at this vantage seem simple and easy) after graduating college. See Affordability.



Imagining a Consumer Loan Program. The image of a pup-tent... Four tent-pegs and a tent post (or two):


Peg One. Using “Sallie Mae-style Rules,” herein referred to as the 1-50K (that’s one dash fifty kay), would require the first fifty thousand in debt of any individual American Consumer to be treated with the forbearance, interest rate restrictions, and fair regulation and rules treatment, similar to if it was a student loan.

The proposal here may potentially include minor Consumer Loan Protection adjustments and improvements to the Sallie Mae Rules, but it does not and should not affect the actual Sallie Mae Program.

A new entity, or possibly branch or division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is proposed to be sponsored by the government for these purposes, as it relates to individual debt;

(A) Government Guarantee to it’s citizens (for that first $50,000)

(B) Regulate the micro-loan ($1 to $50,000 dollars US) markets, and to a lesser extent simplify the small business lending process ($50,001 to $250,000 dollars US) for micro (under $250,000) business loans

(C) Work with existing regulatory and oversight bodies to ensure consumer protections

(D) Independent oversight to expand recommendations for counsel with various regulatory and economic agencies


Government backing will create a secondary market to resell pools of bonds like Sallie, Freddy and Fannie. In this recommendation, we strongly urge the oversight of regulations and the simplicity and transparency of rules, and suggest this could become a means for clarifying, and making positive change in the bond and securities markets, extant.

Micro-loans, those under fifty-thousand dollars, to individuals, as secured by real property, tangible property, or without security are all considered equivalent in this regard, and refer to those US citizens to whom there is such indebtedness, often above and beyond just this loan amount.

I imagine that if this program and set of reforms were so implemented, by having no required loan minimums, we may expect this provision would create a swarm of micro credit availability and lending programs.

Working in concert with existing laws agencies and institutions, new modified and streamlined rules would allow for a massive wave of refinancing of consumer debt.

In some cases, individual credit may be extended.

This proposal amounts to a non-bankruptcy proposal to the American citizen, and an admission by it’s leaders’ that the economic policies for the last decades have not (i) improved affordability, (ii) fully redressed income or prosperity gaps, nor (iii) have fully redressed income discrimination or dispairities.

Debt is unfortunately inevitable, and we (apparently continue to) follow the example of our leaders.


Peg Two. Consumer Rights, Responsibilities, and Limitations

(A) Interest. Your interest rate may not be usurious. Rates are here proposed to have a regulated minimum of 2.5% and a maximum of 7.5%.

(B) Credit. Your “credit rating” can be calculated by a monkey. Five percentage points between 2.5 and 7.5 percent, create five categories of credit-worthiness:

a. Real Estate Attached and Full Documentation (Only)
b. Tangible Property Attached and Full Documentation
c. Tangible Property Attached and Low Documentation
d. Signature Only and Full Documentation
e. Signature Only and Low Documentation

(C) Limits. Your Loan Limit will be one factor where affordability and litmus tests can come into play. (It’s a government-backed loan, not a guarantee that someone will lend.)

(D) Tax Deduction. Any Interest paid on these loans is a write-off, so long as the item purchased isn’t also being depreciated in the tax year interest is written off.

(E) Business. Aside from a shot in the arm with refreshed credit sources, and credit availability, (S, SE, Sole Proprietorship, and 1099) small businesses and contractors will get an additional allowance of benefit in their own category, and these three elements of credit availability and liquidity combined should act as a serious stimulus for Main Street.

(F) Families. Any individual who claims any (one or more) dependant will automatically qualify for an additional $5000.00 credit limit.

(G) Responsibility. Although any Individual or business may refinance the first amount of debt ant any time, without pre-payment penalties, the debt may only be paid-off, and cannot be discharged through Bankruptcy.


Central Tent Pole. Insurance.

In a counter-balance to the risk of “no BK,” or ‘bankruptcies,’ to the consumer there is, aside from the potential for a secondary market in the government backed securities, another mitigating factor to the macro investors, as well as the creditors themselves.

There needs to be a tent pole in place that assures there is a sound investment proposal, otherwise this becomes a government-propped scheme, as opposed to a government operated trust on behalf of the Consumer.

Although no “insurance requirement” is here recommended to be used as a factor for making any one loan, an “insurance component,” that would be available to be opted in to any loan at any time, and in accordance with Federal and State rules, that allows for the expense of servicing to cover the costs of an insurance premium that benefits the Debt-Holder.

These policies do not have to be that simple, but they should follow some rules of the road, and is here recommended can not add to the expense of having taken the loan.

First off, according to this recommendation, like the loans have no pre-payment penalties, these insurance policies can be bought back by the consumer. After a debt is satisfied, the Debt Holder, must offer the consumer a fair right to redeem the Policy being held on his or her life.

Further, that right (1. to satisfy the debt, and 2. to retain the benefit of policy) is best if it also transfers to one’s legatees, heirs, and/or estate tax free, and no undue delay may be created by the Debt Holder.

Finally, a Debt Holder will be required to follow certain time periods that describe normal and requisite response times from Consumer to retrieve such a benefit.

However, in the event of a default, or the death of any consumer, after following procedure in concert with appropriate notification, waiting and response times, the Debt Holder may be considered in first position to discharge all costs against the benefits of any policy so entrusted, before transferring any fully accounted and audited remainder to the Consumer’s legatees, heirs, and/or estate tax free.

By including this insurance component with the government backed facility, (A) we have a secondary guarantee to have any consumer debt satisfied, (B) we have mitigated risk, so justifying the limits on interest rates and fees.

As Mortgage Insurance does for FHA Loans, so for the Debentures and Debts this private Life insurance market will act to mitigate risks posed by individual Consumers acting as borrowers, and secondarily will have the collective benefit of mitigating risks of recoupment of principle. Overall, this should be very attractive to investors, particularly if these debentures remain dollar denominated.


Peg Three. Resultant Savings.

If any of this remains unclear, for whatever reason, just do some basic research and consumer financial education and find out the difference between a typical credit card loan = a negatively amortized revolving loan with fees and rates between 6.99 and 29.99%, and the proposal here to make a flat rate of forbearable interest, fee restrictions, and a rate range from 2.50 and 7.50%-- this will save the average American family $1152 per year!
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Just three ideas and a comment, from what would certainly be an eventual plethora as a result of these recommendations, of ways to improve the Consumer outcome in dealing with Affordability and Debenture, as a net benefit from these rule ideas, for this peg of the tent that may all be simultaneously executed:

(A) In Loan Work-outs, refinances, and/or other incentivized restructuring programs, a tax-free savings account (under rules similar to the HSAs [see Health Savings Account]) may be set up on behalf of the Consumer as a “Learning to Save,” qualification for any business that would so seek to be qualified. That tax free account would eventually revert to the Consumer, after all debts have been satisfied. Lawyers, insurance Agents, Brokers, as well as Credit Counselors, Not for Profit Debt Agencies, et. al. would be ideal candidates to assist in this program by becoming tested, qualified and bonded as a credentialed, licensed and recognized Trustee.

(B) In consumer credit devices, a similar tax-free savings account (under rules similar to the HSAs) may be set up as an incentive to qualify for lower interest rates (still have to be between 2.5 and 7.5% however), and may also with certain restrictions be set up as an overdraft protection mechanism.

(C) After a debt has been satisfied, any remainder due the consumer, with or without any insurance component(s), may be set into a new or existing tax-free savings account.

(D) Comment: Creditors are here recommended to be fully compliant as Trustees and meet additional requirements to participate in housing the principle sums for individual Consumers' Savings Trusteeship accounts that qualify for the FDIC sponsored savings program(s), preferable to local banks, Credit Unions, and Bonded Agents already insured by FDIC.


Peg Four. Business.

Loan Limits here proposed: for individual are $1 ~ $45,000 and then an additional $5,000 if you claim any dependant.

If you file Jointly, then as a couple your combined maximum limit for tax-deductable interest payments on qualified consumer loans is $90,000 and then an additional $5,000 for your first, and second $5,000 if you claim any dependants numbering 2 or above.

If you file as a Sole Proprietor, SE, S-Corp, or 1099, then under additional rules you may apply for “SBA Rules,” or 51-250K (that’s fifty-one dash two-hundred fifty kay [as in loan limits from $51 ~ 250 thousands]), which only should have in common with SBA Loans (1) they’re for Business Purposes, and (2) the government acts as backer of last resort.


Otherwise, only a Board of Advisors role is recommended by this proposal to be held something like at an annual meeting between this Consumer Loan Program (CLP) and the Small Business Administration to coordinate and harmonize lending rules would seem to be potentially necessary.

Same Interest Rate Limits as the first tent peg.

Same 5 credit categories as the first tent peg.

Same tax deduction, same everything, except (i.) loan limits go higher (up to $250,000), but may be slightly more restrictive, and (ii.) may potentially have pre-payment penalties, or other restrictions.

Cash flow of the business, credit worthiness, and net worth should all come into play, but ideally not be so inflexible as to stifle our nations Entrepreneurs from getting a second, third, or even fourth chance at success, the pursuit of happiness, and creation of Jobs!


Conclusion to this proposal. Imaging Purpose; The Second Tent Pole.

The government must act as debtor of last resort in order to encourage the Lending Institutions, and the Financial Industry in general, to effectuate a new game plan, which better enables and ennobles our American Citizenry—A Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—all three things that Lending can do when capital is properly employed.

This proposal is intended to be tax neutral, and highly stimulative to the economy.

Finally, I suggest a slogan to this Agency, Consumer Loan Program, or what-have you, and it reads simply:

Indifference and Forbearance


To whit a philosophy:

This agency in its oversight shall be indifferent to the “whom,” and focus only on the ‘what and how’ in order to protect the consumer, detect fraud and abuse, and foster equal lending practices at the micro-Business and individual Consumer levels.

The objective of this agency is to promote the free flow of capital investment to the farthest reaches of our economy.

Policy and procedure are the foundation, Rule of Law the building, and the marketplace of American Citizens shall be the people whom would so enjoin to make Consumer Loans.

This agency shall preserve the mission to forbear, for the Government must lead by example, and that purpose is: (i) a tolerant and quiet strength with efficiency in motion, (ii) an unyielding belief in Americans as a group and as individuals, (iii) and straightforwardness of purpose.

To bring to bear the proper practices available to the Consumer on the economy.

And, to create opportunities for the American Citizenry in their pursuits of Life, Liberty and happiness.

The 10% (of GDP) Solution

[UPDATED (09/25/09)]

We approach one year since the Government of George W. Bush came to the rescue of Profiteers on Wall Street to create systemic reward for failure in our market driven economy.


Yesterday, Rachael Maddow interviewed Paul Krugman, and

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

In minute five he begins describing the remedies for the current situation and I will be discussing the statements he concludes by about minute six, and among the other interesting points he made he mentioned that in order to get out of the Great Depression we had WWII which required government fiscal input of ~40% of GDP.


He went on to state that the current stimulus is only about 2.5% of GDP.


Now I am not going to spend time checking to see how accurate those numbers are this morning, and I dont agree with everything Krugman says. That disclaimer out of the way, I will say hes probably pretty accurate on those facts, and it is clear (as he also went on to say) that the political fortitude for such a stimulus plan is weak at best (mirroring the point in the one minute clip I could find above).


SO lets take those facts as a rule of thumb. Lets say the economy is twice as efficient now as it was sixty or seventy years ago; Let grant that this Severe Recession isnt exactly the same as the Great Depression (lets say for simplicity its half as bad adding the broader networking of International markets, exchanges, and trade); and we would need about ten percent of GDP in stimulus to really soar past our current problems!


Now lets assume the government has screwed the pooch with Paulson-Cheney's rescue, and that Obama's versions are still too early to call. All that, according to Krugman yesterday is about 4% of GDP (including cash for clunkers, et. al.).


[Lets apply about 1.5% of GDP for Infrastructure improvements, as my memory from first post to this update was off by 1.5%, so that means] we have about another 6% of GDP yet to spend: So thats about $858BB we can still spend.



1. Thats about the estimated cost for the full Health Reform Bill without any efficiency savings



2. My top ten wish list (inclusive of increased infrastructure and health care inclusive of efficiency savings)


or


3. A Citizens Stimulus



Here's the idea: Instead of giving more money to the moneyed interests, give to the citizens! Let's say there are about 200,000,000 individual and family tax payers; There is about $850BB to give for completion of stimulus which is about 1/4th as strong as how we escaped the Great Depression; then we have about $4250 Credit Amount per individual.



A. Order of the Allthing. In Icelandic and Nordic cultures there was the All Thing which basically reconciled all debts every year-- including debt forgiveness. So here would be the thing which I prescribe;


i. First, subtract Federal back taxes and penalties forgiven up to the Credit Amount
ii. Then from that remainder, subtract State back taxes and penalties forgiven up to the Total Credit Amount (This money goes to the States!)
iii. Next from that remainder, subtract local (real estate) tax liens and penalties forgiven up to the Total Credit Amount (This goes to the local governments!!)
iv. Finally, assuming anything is left over, any outstanding judgements, child support, or other unpaid levies would be forgiven up to that Total Credit Amount



B. The way TARP should have been applied.


i. Citizen give government the right to examine credit records (they ostensibly have this data just from Fannie-Freddie)
ii. Government confirms real outstanding balances from an official capacity via subpoena powers (thereby any institution being usurious or illegal would be committing fraud at a Federal level)
iii. Citizen has time to dispute final balances
iv. Creditor has right to re-validate claim(s)
v. Citizen may elect to have any remainder from Allthing process (above) to be applied to some or all participating Creditors to discharge debts in a class manner



C. Citizen may simply bypass this class bailout/credit restoration process and collect remainder form Allthing process.


SO think about this practically! Lets say 33% have something left over and want to participate in this settling of debts. Lets imagine who the money is owed to? In its current configuration (post-bailouts and mergers) something like 90% of all consumer debts are carried by 5 major institutions.


IF we imagine that Citibank (for instance) then recovers something to the tune of 10% of its consumer debt, doesnt that serve the same purpose of stimulus? It also relieves the consumer, and technically allows Citibank to make new loans!


FInally, if all those bailout moneys had been so applied the amount being discussed would be closer to $10K per person, and if we added the idea that mortgages could be included as direct or indirect beneficiaries to the class settlements or the use of funds by individuals who elected to bypass the settlement process some of the foreclosure and real estate market issues would have been rounded out.


You may say I am a dreamer, but I hope someday you will join me...!

Update

So I haven't been anywhere in Cyberspace for well over a month... I barely had time and energy to make that little quip about Cheney.

Reason why: I have completed the first draft and first edit of a two hundred (or so) page book on Macro Economics.

The book is meant to be readable and modestly entertaining, but in fact is an exposition in Philosophical thought on economics which allows the reader to follow an argument I have been thinking for over twenty years now, but had allowed myself to be convinced by the "trickle-downers" that theirs was a system that worked.

Well that horse has left the barn, and the fly in the ointment is a obvious as the emperors new clothes. Sorry, had to puke out a couple of over used cliches, which I tried to avoid in the book, with the exception of two, for which I directly apologize to the reader having (in less than one months writing) only come up with those relatively apt descriptions to hasten the readability.

I would have loved to spend ten years instead writing some needlessly complex book which makes obscure and practical example of the thought so espoused in this work, but morally I felt the compuncture to instead make an effort to shift the dialogue we are presently trapped in with our current economic state of affairs.

All that said, I am hanging in there, wish you all the best, and hope to publish the book as a final draft by March.

Why the Republicans are "Communists"

Lets start off by defining communism via copying from Wikipedia;

"Communism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general."

That very good sentence is not what I mean by referring to the "W" administration as Communist.

Lets shade things in a little:

When I was growing up you were a Pinko, Commie, or as Wally George would say, "Looney Liberal" if you disagreed with trickle down economics.



Aside from Appeal to the Masses approach of name calling, why would I conclude that the label of Communist, as the many Republicanistas I have known over the many decades, would call someone, group, or argument which believed in any hint of the socialist concept of nationalization of wealth, be an appropriate adjective for the Republicans?

Lets construct the argument from the Republicans and their Administration.

(1) Paulson hands in a three page proposal to solicit $750BB by using an Appeal to Fear.

(2) The congress, after some questioning, submits to this request without examining the construct of mechanisms of oversight, re-regulation, or sufficient scientific or public input by certifying the Appeal to Fear and also using an Appeal to Consequences.

(3) Paulson in turn has "bailed out" only the richest and most influential corporations without any calculation towards restoring the credit markets. In doing this he acting as proxy for the "W" Administration has nationalized more dollar for dollar (adjusted) private wealth than did Lenin in the 1917 Russian Revolution.

The main difference between the almost 90 years and two continents? Lenin nationalized means of production, and Paulson/Bush have nationalized private failures.

As sickening as that statement is alone, it in my opinion gets worse.

(4) Now it also turns out that the execs and other elite do not have to take any pay cut for their failures.

The primary argument from all the trickle downers was that through facilitating the elites, you create more jobs, and thus have a social hierarchy which is a form of meritocracy. Often the arguments from those same trickle downers was that to have a state mechanism which takes care of less fortunate, say war veterans or people with disabilities, would reward failure, incompetence, or lacksadaisy. Can you see where I am going on this one?

The beneficiaries of the decades of pro-corporation, deregulatory, and trickle down thinking has been turned on its head by those very same people who would have argued (in the face of say a $700BB package to allow individuals who earn less than $50K per annum to write down their losses [not pay taxes], be reimbursed for incompetence, and be availed of debts incurred from their poor decisions by the US government) against such a blatant avoidance of capitalist consequences.

Those who would argue that somehow the Clinton years were not in this bag of hammers are dead wrong. Clinton worked with the Knut Gingrich congress to get those lazy welfare mothers back to work, for instance. Only Jimmy Carter tried to oppose the Nixonian economic dismantling of the Great Society and the New Deal-- and he was absolutely punished (for not doing a very good job of trying to swim against the current).

So, was Paulson's appeal true or false? Probably a little of both. Yes, the sky was falling, but not in the way anyone could comprehend-- or at least anyone who truly comprehended this did not say. (On a separate note, how convenient is it of the anti-government Republicans to not only have built the largest American bureaucracy in history, but to have also spared us poor innocent citizens from the awful and complex truth involved in the facts {thus a defacto Nanny State mentality, to boot}?)

So, was Congress reasonable or irrational to take such drastic action? Probably a bit of both. On the one hand to it was fairly unpopular (especially at first blush), but to have gone into lame duck session without action could have been political poison for reelection.

So will the companies chosen to be bailed out be a good or poor move by the collective US Government? Probably a bit of both, again: On the one hand if we are truly getting preferred stock interest, corporate bonds, and other repayment guarantees, then there is a real probability (say 30 ~ 55% chance) that the US government (and hence the taxpayer) will come out ahead in dollar for dollar inflation adjusted numbers at the end of two or three decades. On the other hand it is in my estimation also a fair probability that dollar for dollar we could come out behind.

Effectively the US Government will have to now manage a portfolio. On the other hand, it will control certain of these groups (like Fannie-Freddie). All the while being the regulator for these corporations! This is a Corporatist Socialism model which in large part has been the fantasy of many of the Pro-Business "Libertarians" I have read.

They showed Soylent Green on TV yesterday, and that is taking the overreach and complicit conspiracy between corporation and government to a natural and far reaching (if not simplistic) conclusion.



My recommendations for the new administration:

(a) Re-enforce various merit based pay systems/anti-golden parachute provisions for these loans, or they will become due. The Republicans (and many Dems) are fond these days of talking about mortgages and other legal devices as if these are mutable documents. The basis of law is the immutable nature of such binding agreements in writing and witnessed. If there is going to be any flexibility in interpreting legal agreements lets start with the fact that the intention of the parties was NO GOLDEN PARACHUTES!

(b) Envigorate and expand regulatory mechanisms. Further this by making public oversight commissions to review this triangle between the US Government as Stock/Bond holder, US Government as regulator and enforcer of laws, and as shepherd of tax dollars thus invested. (Think Customer, Regulator, and Broker-- of which US Govt is now all three.)

(c) Create new rules for this new use of tax dollars to further discourage cronyism, quid pro quo, and other unsavory action which could clearly emerge over time from this unholy trinity by creating trust fund and anti-collusion rules for the US Government as Broker.

(d) Create timelines (not in terms of time, rather in terms of event mile markers) which delineate the divestment of these holdings (as Customer).

(e) Enforce the bloody rules that are on the books! And simplify them so that even the company Receptionist could theoretically blow the whistle upon detecting malfeasance or felonious behaviour!!

So now I am going back in time, to 1987, Reagan is President, and I am going to visit Wally George and be on the lame-ass Hot Seat show to say, "We need to infuse business with $700BB in order to allow them to avoid losses, keep their jobs, and 'stimulate the economy.' I believe the government should become three times bigger than it is today. I think it will be good for us to avoid confusing our consumers, I mean citizens, with any real information or data germane to the decision making processes, because politicians know best. And then I believe as regulator, primary stock holder, and investor the US Government shouldn't be burdened by little details like accounting for how those funds are used by the corporations we deign to be worthy of state investments!"

Commie!