Making banks pay for their secret $7 trillion free ride

Eliot Spitzer offers "5 Ways to Make Banks Pay for Their Secret $7 Trillion Free Ride." Here's the problem:

During the deepest, darkest period of the financial cataclysm, the CEOs of major banks maintained in statements to the public, to the market at large, and to their own shareholders that the banks were in good financial shape, didn’t want to take TARP funds, and that the regulatory framework governing our banking system should not be altered. Trust us, they said. Yet, unknown to the public and the Congress, these same banks had been borrowing massive amounts from the government to remain afloat. The total numbers are staggering: $7.7 trillion of credit—one-half of the GDP of the entire nation. $460 billion was lent to J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley alone—without anybody other than a few select officials at the Fed and the Treasury knowing. This was perhaps the single most massive allocation of capital from public to private hands in our history, and nobody was told. This was not TARP: This was secret Fed lending.

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What the news media used to be

Comment following transcript of a speech by Dan Rather, this comment being authored by "fredboy":

We went from hardball reporting in the 60s, 70s, and 80s--I know, because I was an investigative reporter at the time and took heat from no one--to today's "news". Newspapers are but floor diapers to train new pups, and TV network "news" is eight minutes of Washington and campaign press releases and seven minutes of lollypop feel good softballs.

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Superior autobiographical memory

A friend of mine who I have known since high school has often quoted actual dates on which events occurred a long time ago. Much of the time, I haven't had a way to disprove him, but on several occasions I was able to confirm that he had stunning recall. After watching the following video from a 60 Minutes show, I emailed Mike, urging him to take a look. The people featured in this 60 Minutes two-part video easily remember non-emotional ordinary events from throughout their lives down to the actual dates on which those events occurred.  If you're like me, you'll be somewhat suspicious of the idea that people can remember long-ago events of their lives so well. If so, watch the video--it will leave you shaking your head unless you have this ability yourself. This extreme memory is a stunning phenomena.  Check out the researcher's statement at about the 10-minute mark of the video that these folks are correct 99% of the time that they offer these detailed responses.    Until watching this show, however, I had assumed that the ability to forget would be essential to good mental health.  Based on the appearance of the superior memory subjects, that doesn't appear to be true (though most of the subjects are not involved in long-term romantic relationships).   These subjects have amazing recall without having any struggle with "cluttered" minds. I definitely don't have "superior autobiographical memory."  I don't need all of superior autobiographical capability, but I wish I had somewhat better recollection. James McGaugh, Ph.D.- University of California at Irvine, has studied these ultra-memory folks and will be discussing his findings at a Psychology Colloquium on Monday, December 5, 4:00 PM, Wilson 214 at Washington University.   McGaugh's team has found (video, Part II at the 2 minute mark) that people with superior autobiographical memory had larger (almost twice as large as expected) temporal lobes and caudate nuclei (the latter of which has been associated with OCD).   See Video II at the 3-minute mark for more on the OCD angle. Here's more on this fascinating topic.

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Your privacy in the news

Here is some recent news I learned from links posted by Electronic Frontier Foundation. Carrier IQ’s code is raising lots of questions:

“Consumers need to know that their safety and privacy are being protected by the companies they trust with their sensitive information,” Franken said Thursday. “The revelation that the locations and other sensitive data of millions of Americans are being secretly recorded and possibly transmitted is deeply troubling. This news underscores the need for Congress to act swiftly to protect the location information and private, sensitive information of consumers. But right now, Carrier IQ has a lot of questions to answer.”
Amazon’s new browser, Silk, is raising concerns. (Senator Ed Markey is asking some good questions here):

Amazon told a Massachusetts congressman that the Silk browser in its Kindle Fire tablet doesn't pose a privacy threat to consumers, but the lawmaker wasn't ready to give the online retailer a pass. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the co-chairman of a congressional caucus on consumer privacy, on Tuesday released the retailer's responses to questions he had put to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in October about Silk and the data it collected.

Markey wasn't happy with Amazon's answers.

"Amazon's responses to my inquiries do not provide enough detail about how the company intends to use customer information, beyond acknowledging that the company uses this valuable information," said Markey in a statement.

New outrageous bill invites government to snoop.

The bill would allow a broad swath of ISPs and other private entities to "use cybersecurity systems" to collect and share masses of user data with the government, other businesses, or "any other entity" so long as it’s for a vaguely-defined "cybersecurity purpose." It would trump existing privacy statutes that strictly limit the interception and disclosure of your private communications data, as well as any other state or federal law that might get in the way. Indeed, the language may be broad enough to bless the covert use of spyware if done in "good faith" for a "cybersecurity purpose."

EFF is an excellent source of new on the issues of privacy and censorship. Here is an excerpt from the About page:

From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990 — well before the Internet was on most people's radar — and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.

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Media rigging elections

This Huffpo article illustrates how the "news media" determines what candidates are acceptable before the People ever have a chance to vote for them. FOX has decided that it is time to pull Mitt Romney down and to prop up Newt Gingrich. FOX is but one media voice, but it is an especially strong one for many people who will be voting republican. Last election cycle, for example, FOX worked hard to make sure that Ron Paul didn't get the nomination--it was my sense that had FOX gotten behind him, he might have become the nominee. It is my belief that the cumulative effect of these sorts of media positions almost completely decide who the nominees of both parties will be. I suspect that if FOX wanted Romney to soar in the polls, they have enough influence to make that happen, but they don't want that to happen, so they will peck away to make Romney look "plastic," or whatever needs to be said to steer the audience away from him. The net result of this media input is that the media has influence--too much influence--over who will be the nominees of both parties. The media decides who are the "serious" candidates.  Eventually, the people get to vote on one of only two viable candidates, one a Democrat and other a Republican. That's one choice greater than countries (like the old Soviet Union) whose political systems are entirely corrupt.

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