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Diane picked up that the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting Wall Street investors are getting a little shaky with UNO, a quasi-government-private partnership that was supposed to rapidly expand charter schools in and around Chicago.
An expansion that was to be partially funded by $37.5 million of Wall Street’s money.
A crack has just opened in the impenetrable fortress wall. A pinpoint of light is shining through.
The easiest way to stop the charter school process may not be through legislation, but by an actions far simpler to achieve: Make charter schools unprofitable… A philanthropist will invest in a charter if it earns no money. But Wall Street investor certainly will not.
That is the problem they have with Chicago.. Chicago points the way on how to organize and hit Wall Street where it hurts…
A. Picket Charter Schools as unfair to Labor. Who wants to sign their children up in a school with picket signs outside protesting the destruction of the middle class by Wall Street? What kind of status symbol would that be, to have to tell your boss where your kids go to school? An embarrassment, that’s what.
B. Call state legislators to complain about anything negative you can find out about the “new” charter school. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone. Truly, you are doing that lawmaker a favor; you are saving his butt from being blindsided by parents back home. All he hears from lobbyists in his office, is how great charter schools theoretically are. Reality is far different…
C. Threat of unionizing all Charter School Teachers… And why not? Why not enlist Charter School teachers and help them get organized to demand higher wages or strike? Aren’t they people too? Why should they work for a lot less than public school teachers, when they could easily be making the same salaries if they would just organize into a union, as do public teachers? What Charter School teacher would say no to higher wages? What Charter School Teacher could say no to higher wages… It is time to aggressively recruit.
D. Investigate all transactions to insure no embezzlement. Check over state funding to Charters which is published and look aggressively for corruption, nepotism, and anything to taint the charter school in bad light, thereby jeopardizing state funding…
Arne Duncun said… we would learn a lot from Chicago… and he was right.
In short, UNO obtained $98 million from the state legislature to build new charters. It turns out that $8.5 million of that money went to companies owned by two brothers of UNO’s number 2 official, Miguel d’Escoto. When the scandal broke, he stepped down from his $200,000 job, resulting in then Governor Pat Quinn to halt payment on the balance still owed to UNO…. Investors got worried and question UNO in a conference call, over the scandal, over the unionization of Charter teachers taking place, over the halt of construction on one of the new schools for failure to pay the bills, The governor has suspended payments of the remainder of state money until satisfied that the Charter is performing as promised. And this just in, UNO spokesperson confessed to the Chicago Sun-Times that “future funding may be at stake..”
The lesson here, is that getting a legislator to part with his campaign money coming in, is a lot harder than making Wall Street’s return on investment extremely risky. When Wall Street starts consistently losing money each time it invests in education, it will move on to something more prosperous.
We see what we have to do,…. Now, lets make it happen…
Union leaders. Start pressing charter schools to join.
Bloggers. Start pouring over the balance sheets on line of your nearest Charter School.
Parents. Write you legislator on how much Charter Schools have destroyed the educational experience for you child…
Yes we can do this… We can learn a lot from Chicago.
Because Social Security is getting cut down, you choose to put your money in an IRA… Since doing percents are easy with amounts starting with a one and ending in zeros, let us assume you choose to put $100,000 in an IRA for 20 years…. The Wall Street firm will charge you 2%. You think, $100,000? 2%, ok … $2,000 over 20 years that’s nothing.. I’ll still have 98% plus interest over 20 years…
You think? This is Wall $treet we’re talking about……
So take this interest compounding calculator. … Seriously, you need to do this. Right click it into a new tab so your computer doesn’t have to download flipping back and forth….
Add $100,000 as principle. No new additions on the first round. Time Frame: 20 years. For the interest rate put in negative 2. Since you are going to be receiving only 98% of your earnings on a yearly basis, a negative 2 works better than having to do the extra step latter and subtracting two totals.
Hit total… At 2% compounded off that $100,000 you originally placed,… after commissions all you will have left is $66,760… Wall $treet takes 1/3 of what you earn…..
Not convinced? Let’s go a different way. Let’s say you will average 7% increases with a 2% commission… We’ll do it in two steps. We will use the calculator to figure out what we would have earned at 7%, and again, what we would have earned at 5%. We will subtract the two to see how much Wall $treet is taking out from your future…
At 7% increases we would have earned $386,968 over 20 years with no additions after the initial deposit. At 5% increases our total maxes out at $265,329. That 2% costs us…..$121,639 dollars…. The same 1/3 as above….
The argument can be made that since we agreed to it in the beginning and never got it, the commissions really doesn’t cost us anything. But if we change the wording so we say that it costs us $121,599 in “potential earnings” that clears that hurdle and if probably a more truthful line.. But there is no question …. these calculations show us how much Wall $treet intends to make when our retirements go their way instead of coming through Social Security….
We now remember why Franklin D. Roosevelt went with Social Security in the first place. Those who saved across all their lives, can not afford to live after they stopped working.
Not like Sam Donaldson got belted… but the old fashioned way. The way Dad did when his little kids messed up big…
The nation was starving to hear about gun control. The President issues a brief statement then asked for questions.
The first question was NOT about gun control. It was about the fiscal cliff. Most people outside the beltway don’t care that much about the fiscal cliff. 26 people were not pushed off a cliff.
The second question was NOT about gun control. It was about the fiscal cliff. Again, can we please get back to gun control….
The third question was NOT about gun control. It was about the fiscal cliff… Excuse me MR. Reporter? Did you miss the story and impact of the shooting last Friday? Or you don’t even care?
Near the end, Jake Tapper, and ABC News reporter finally asked…. noting that the president hasn’t done much on guns in the last four years and asking, “Where have you been?”
Obama answered exactly correct… I pulled us out of the Great Depression faster than did President Roosevelt. I resurrected the American Automobile industry, which would have failed. I was fighting two wars, one I finished, and the other I will soon finish in this term. It has not been a vacation…….
He should have responded….. “The real question is where have YOU been? You are the press; you define the arguments to which I have to give answer. Right here. Right now. In a press conference to cover this tragic disaster of a mass shooting in Connecticut, one of children 6 years old… I have to first answer 3 questions about the fiscal cliff, because to you, that is more important… The real answer, is if I wasn’t having to fight so many firefights ignited by the press, usually over nothing, I could get some real work done….”
“Reality” could not have more clearly answered Jake Tapper’s question…..
Remember those few donors during the Republican primaries who were sheltering candidates almost to the point of being their prime funder?
Among the nouveau riche, it appears one hasn’t arrived until he/she has a prize winning candidate in their barn… It used to be racehorses. It is now GOP candidates…
These people donating up to $100 million in support of their champion, according to sources in the Wall Street Journal (disclaimer: it is a Murdoch rag)… are the very reason so much noise by Boehner, McConnell, Norquist, are being made over raising the top marginal tax rate…
All sorts of schemes are being created by Republicans to deflect this increase in top marginal rate. The removal of or cap on deductions hurts those earning between $250,000 and $500,000 considerably more than it hurts billionaires. The higher marginal rates is the only tax that makes billionaires pay more.. All others they can use loopholes to get out of…
In other words when it comes to Republicans, as Romney said when speaking of the 47%…. YOU DON’T MATTER. Today’s Republican leadership has taken that level up to 99% who do not matter.
One can’t be too hard on these individuals though. With out the billions being funded by a “few good men”, the Republican party would shrivel up and wither away.
You saw how bad they got beat! Just imagine how worse it would be if they had 90% less cash to spend?
If we do go off the cliff, it will be solely because these Republicans don’t want to tax the 1%….
It will not be because of the other side…..
Google this Bitches…. Who is Daniel Henninger? He writes for the Wall Street Journal. He castigated Democrats and particularly the Obama Team for calling out Romney/ Ryan as a liar….
Which is exactly the defense every defense attorney takes…... WHEN THEIR CLIENT IS GUILTY OF THE CHARGE BEING MADE…..
David Henniger’s actions, in the eyes of most courtroom watchers, can be seen as proof that he knows, … Romney is a mo**fokin liar. He knows. Here is what he wrote.
“Liar” is a potent and ugly word with a sleazy political pedigree. But “liar” is not being deployed only by party attack dogs or the Daily Kos comment queue. Mitt Romney is being called a “liar” by officials at the top of the Obama re-election campaign. Speaking the day after the debate in the press cabin of Air Force One, top Obama adviser David Plouffe said, “We thought it was important to let people know that someone who would lie to 50 million Americans, you should have some questions about whether that person should sit in the Oval Office.”
Exactly as would a mob employed defensive attorney ….. David Henniger states: ”Explicitly calling someone a “liar” is—or used to be—a serious and rare charge, in or out of politics. It’s a loaded word. It crosses a line. “Liar” suggests bad faith and conscious duplicity—a total, cynical falsity.”
C’mon David. You know he’s guilty, don’t you?
You know how we know? BECAUSE NO WHERE IN YOUR PIECE DO YOU ADDRESS THE LIES MADE BY ROMNEY AND RYAN!!!!
Obviously you DO know he is guilty….. Bite your tongue. Your actions have already outed you…..
Example: “I am against abortion/ I am for abortion. ” Uhhh. one of those has to be lie.
Example: ” I am cutting taxes for the upper class/ I am not cutting taxes for the upper class.” Uhhh, one of those has to be a lie.
Example: ” I will not do what Obama did in Syria/ I would do the same thing Obama has done in Syria.” ”Uhh, one of those has to be a lie.
Example: ”I would not withdraw forces from Afghanistan in 2014/ I would stick to the timetable and withdraw forces from Afghanistan in 2014.” Uhh, one of those has to be lie.
Example: “I would remove all the abomination of Obamacare on day one/ I would keep a lot of the good parts of Obamacare when I take office.” Uhh, one of those has to be a lie….
So, Daniel Henniger. What is it one calls you, who defends a person who lies so much that he wipes 5 Hour Energy Drink stocks off the shelves? …Just so fact checkers can keep up with him?
Do we call YOU, Daniel Henniger, a liar? Do we call you Goebbles? Do we call you Lord Ha Ha? Do we call you Tokyo Rose? Do we call you the Red Army of Misinformation? Do we call you Baghdad Bob? Do we call you Kim Il Sung?
All these fit. We certainly can’t call you an unbiased journalist….. We can’t even call you a biased journalist. Because you overlook lies. At best you are a propagandist. A marketer. A person with a hidden agenda. And so we, cant trust you. Sorry, but you have lost your credibility… I’m not being mean. I’m just being rational.
I’m sure, those paying your salary, will continue to do so until you begin to also cost them credibility…. Which is about to begin …. right now.
The Wall Street Journal not only employees Daniel Henniger, but it also employees another propagandist who double teams the same story: That mo**fokin’ liar’s name is…. James Taranto. He also pursues the mob defense lawyer approach. Attack the liars but ignore the lies…. Which is rather hard to do in this case. Because when you strip Romney/Ryan down, all you have are lies….
Their whole campaign is lies, packaged for those who believe in anything that gets told to them.
Do they tell you that Obama has created 5.3 million new private sector jobs? At a higher rate than Ronald Reagan did? What no? They don’t say that? Are you serious? They call themselves journalists?
Do they tell you that Republican Tea Partiers have cut 600,000 jobs in the last two years? Imagine if we had those jobs on top of the 5.3 million private sector jobs the Obama team has made? What no? They don’t say that? Are you serious? They call themselves journalists?
Do they tell you that Republican Policies including their recession are 99% of the deficit we currently are borrowing to pay? What no? They don’t say that? Are you serious? They call themselves journalists?
Of course they are not journalists. They work for the Wall Street Journal, which as one and only one motto. Push policies that make Rupert Murdoch wealthier. Period.
So if you can’t trust the Wall Street Journal for presidential news, what makes you think you can trust it on anything else. If your spouse lies to you about working and she is in bed with your best friend, and you find out, can you trust her that the hamburger she cooked in your fridge is still safe to eat? Can you trust that the knife she keeps under your bed for intruders, won’t at some expeditious moment, be used on you?
Are the Wall Street Journal’s stock tips, being stated to guide your investment portfolios to greater wealth? Or… did the entities that run the Wall Street Journal, just use those stories to drive up those stocks THEY purchased the day before?
The Wall Street Journal at one time, was considered credible. It isn’t anymore. The entire structure of that organization from the top down, is politicized. They don’t want you to make up your own mind. They want to tell you what to do.
Daniel Henniger has destroyed all credibility the Wall Street Journal once had… And I am in no way partisan. I’m just a courtroom observor who has seen it all before.
There is no difference between the actions of today’s Wall Street Journal, and the mob that existed in the Seventies, so ably protrayed in the Godfather Episodes One, Two, and Three …..
So, Google this Bitches…..
I’ll let others speak for me here….
Peggy Noonan: Wall Street Journal.
“It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one. It’s not big, it’s not brave, it’s not thoughtfully tackling great issues. It’s always been too small for the moment. All the activists, party supporters and big donors should be pushing for change. People want to focus on who at the top is least constructive and most responsible. Fine, but Mitt Romney is no puppet: He chooses who to listen to. An intervention is in order. ‘Mitt, this isn’t working.’”
“Romney, who criticizes President Obama for dividing the nation, divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the moochers… The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view – from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers… He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign.”
Billy Kristol: The Daily Standard
“It’s worth recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don’t pay income taxes are Romney supporters—especially of course seniors… as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they’re not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.”
“Those in the 47 percent who aren’t seniors or veterans are mostly poor workers whose payroll taxes, at 15.3 percent (since the employer side of the tax effectively comes out of workers’ wages), leaves them taxed at a higher rate than was Mitt Romney on his $20 million income last year… To be so insultingly tone deaf and self-destructive even while being dead wrong and hypocritical on the substance is a perverse sort of accomplishment. It’s not easy to be this bad.”
“There is no sin greater in a presidential race than telling the truth. Romney is being excoriated for accurately describing the situation in America today. Painting with broad strokes will do many individuals an injustice. But the fact remains that our electorate is basically bifurcated into those who pay taxes and those who receive benefits… Why do so many people feel Romney will be better at improving the economy and yet still plan to vote for Obama? The answer is that they care more about preserving their entitlements than about improving the economy.”
In the voice of the Republican Party, there is not one mention of Mitt Romney in any article on their front page, going all the way back to Sept. 7th. Like they are embarrassed about him or something….
If everyone hates him, why would anyone in their right mind want to vote for him?
yep, it will be in his speech tonight…..
And pundits will cheer, slobber, pat themselves on the backs over another slogan, and have no idea what will happen if he does… Since I know, I’m going to tell you….
ON DAY ONE, IF MITT ROMNEY NULLS AND VOIDS THE WALL STREET REFORM BILL……
A) FDIC insured funds drop from $250,000 down to $100,000…..
B) The burden for paying the FDIC Insurance shifts from Big National Banks, to small ones.
C) The overall size of the FDIC fund shrinks, leaving multiple banks without protection.
D) Gone is the regulatory agency that protects consumers from abusive practices from unscrupulous people.
E) No longer will anyone be watching the big national banks to make sure they don’t create another depression.
F) Derivatives trading which is now traded openly, can go back to the shadows which caused the last depression.
Of course this is just posturing and pandering by Romney. No one will ever write off these regulations. It is just a political stunt…. or at least we hope…
But the point is, if you want to avoid another Great Depression, then you need to vote Democratic… Pure and Simple… And you need to give them a majority in the Senate and the House….
i can’t believe the media does not even know what removing the Wall Street Reforms entails… Someone should donate to them some 5 Hour Energy…..
One of the items in the Wall Street Reform Act, a bill Mitt Romney says he wants to scrap on day one, makes executives pay for messing up.
Investors now are given a heads up on their CEO’s compensation plans and golden parachutes. That information used to be only privy to the board.
Secondly, if a public traded company restates its earnings because of accounting errors, it must seek compensation by any past, present executive office in excess of what was under reported. Which means it comes out of the bosses pay…. Hooray! Rejoice. Rejoice.
Third, if a large financial company is put into receivership, the FDIC can take back ANY compensation over the past two years, received by any senior executive or director, past or present, who was substantially responsible of the loss of the firm…..
These are teeth you can’t get put in by a Republican. Only Democrats have the balls to take on big banks and big financial firms. We don’t need a goofy Republican president with a pair of marbles.
Don’t even believe that gasoline prices are set by supply and demand…
They are set by hedge funds. Of course those hedge funds use global events to pump up the price, and if the market suddenly drops, those global hedge funds dump oil as fast as they can, so there is some correlation to events that shake people up……..
But, to control the price of oil, you need to control those who put money into these funds…..
And the fastest way to make them exit, is for them to lose money.
Here is a step by step description of how to drop gasoline prices…
First background facts.
Global demand per day, is 90 million barrels.
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is 727 million barrels..
The model for this scenario occurred 5/5/2011.
Brent Crude is selling for 117 a barrel today…..
Ok….
At ten o’clock sharp, the President announces he is authorizing the sale of 30 million barrels from the strategic Petroleum Reserve to exert downward pressure on the price of oil…. The EC is also releasing 30 million barrels, roughly 60 barrels total.
Those contracts come up for sale at $97 a barrel… The Strategic Reserves can afford to do this, because much of this oil was bought at prices under $60 a barrel.
Those get bought up quickly….
The Price of Brent crude plummets in minutes from $117 to a little over $97…. Suddenly Brent crude is cheaper than lower grade oil, so as money moves to Brent, lower grade prices plummet too…
Instantly all computers analyze the dropping price, and sell their stocks… The price begins to accelerate lower. Each automated sell orders gets generated as oil crashed through price points that traders had programed in advance into their supercomputers.
$95
$93
$92
Price of oil is now $25 below its price minutes before Obama spoke……
$91
$90
Margin calls start piling up… As you receive one, two, three, are following right behind it…. as computers see the price and on command, spit out the request….
The machine trading cuts out the white knuckles, the gasps of air, the flatulence, the human error, the wait-and-see-cause-I-still-don’t-believe-this-is-happening…… Instead, as programmed, automatic, abrupt price drops can quickly prompt these machines to unload a bullish long-position in oil, and build up a bearish short one instead…..
$89
$88
$87
Wall Street traders stop and watch the board… Not knowing who, or what, or where the money is going. Just watching the price go, go, go .. down, down, down,….. All they do know, is every firm’s computer across the globe, is feeding into the frenzy….
$86
$85
$84
In Texas, on oil refinery row, silence ensues as there is nothing which can be done until the market settles for a moment. The floor is covered with torn spreadsheets from the initial drop…..
$83
$82
By 1:00 the smell of blood is all over Wall Street… Phone calls between friends at stockbrokers, hedge funds, oil suppliers all wondering who was going belly up first….
$81
$80
$79
Rumors abound as everyone wonders which major commodities funds are on the losing end of bullish oil bets, and which are getting forced by margin calls from brokers into dumping even more massive positions.
$78
$77
$76
Then came the word… London based Blue-Gold hedge fund was looking for a buyer… (They specialized in bullish bets on the oil market…)
$75
$74
$73
It is now 2:00 just 4 hours after the announcement….
The US and European Petroleum Reserves begin buying up oil contracts amounting up to 30 million barrels each….
By 3:00, others begin buying oil at a bargain price…..
Hedge fund computers begin assessing their losses… Analysts are frantically calling whoever they know to get first reports on the damage.
Retailers begin setting their prices to match the new barrel price over $40 lower than the previous day…. People pulling up to the stations can’t believe their eyes… The gas that was $4.50 when they went to work that morning, was now only $2.88 per gallon….
Across America there was rejoicing…. Whole families are going out to celebrate!
We finally found a president who’d stand up to the fleecers and drainers of the American Way…. In one day, a little under $4 billion was cut from the daily cost of using the globe’s oil ….
Beaten on their own battlefield, they were…….
Now, that’s…. what I call a “good” president…..
(Oil hedge funds never again became a preferred method of speculation. The price of oil never again rose above $2.90)….
The End.
