Municipal Bankruptcy

I was shocked to hear on NPR this evening that Jefferson County Alabama, where Birmingham is located, is on the verge of bankruptcy.  Listening to the radio, I thought, this is truly a sign of the times.

The reality that municipalities are suffering all across America is made all the more real when one reads this history of bankruptcy among cities and towns.  During the Great Depression, some 2,000 cities defaulted on their debt obligations.  When they pleaded for a federal bailout all they got was sympathy.  President Roosevelt then pushed through regulations for Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code which would allow municipalities to declare bankruptcy for the first time.

Since 1980, thirty-two cities and towns have declared bankruptcy. Most notable of these were Bridgeport, Conn., population 140,000, which declared bankruptcy in 1991. And, in the nation’s biggest municipal bankruptcy, Orange County, Calif., sought protection from its creditors in 1994 after city officials made a series of bad investments.

Some experts believe the warning signs are clear: unfunded pension liabilities, an anemic economy, costly infrastructure repairs and falling property values, all add up to the likelihood of an increasing number of municipal bankruptcies in the near future. [Read More]

The Photo Tells All….

In Honor of Halloween….

Halloween, has got to be my most favorite holiday; since the days of my early childhood I can remember always getting excited (no, not in THAT way, you pig), when October 31st would roll around.  Sure, back then, it was all for the candy; remember I’m a healthy American with a healthy addiction to chocolate and sugar.

As I grew older, my fascination turned to creating realistic makeup effects using things like stage blood, derma wax and liquid latex.

Now in my 40s, I still have a fascination with the holiday, but I tend to stay home more and hand out the candy.  Of course, I still dress up whenever I can pull it all together.

In honor of Halloween, here are some pictures of a few legendary fright flicks!  Enjoy.

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Arrogance or Naivete?

Recently U.S. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) made the rounds in Southeastern Massachusetts.  The congressman spoke about how the government would make sure that the troubles on Wall Street which have pushed us our nation’s economy to the brink of collapse never happens again.

Is this political hype in a re-election season, arrogance on the part of Congress, or perhaps even some degree of naivete?

Congress, while genuinely concentrated on improving the lives of some, if not all, Americans just doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal that would be needed to outsmart the geniuses in the business world where greedy is the strongest motivator of them all.  So, one must ask, how would Congress deliver on this lofty promise?

Clearly the “regulatory” environment that has been slowly but consistently dismantled by both Democrats and Republicans over the last three decades has to be reinstalled.  Businesses need to be regulated like virtually everything else.  To do this, the impact of lobbyists will have to be substantially minimized.

None of this is likely to happen as long as our current political system can be bought through the process of campaign donations.

After the regulations comes back – who will enforce them?  The government will need to hire an entirely new batch of skilled and reliable investigators and regulators.  It isn’t enough that Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke was supposed to be minding the store at time when all of this chaos was gathering steam.  No, these investigators have to be independent and accountable to no one else other than the American people – since we’re the one’s paying the bills created by the mistakes of others.

To accomplish all of this, many, many regulations and laws will have to be created – and that will take some time.  I’m not saying that it cannot be done, but that it is indeed unlikely that it will be done; that is unless Congress suddenly develops a social conscious and has an epiphany which ushers in a drastic change affecting business as usual in Washington, D.C.

The Kitchendale Group 5

OK, so this is a bit of a departure from my recent blabbering about politics.  I can’t exactly remember how I stumbled upon the YouTube video which features these three guys showering, but it might have had something to do with an online search about Paul Lekakis’ remake of his chart-topping 1980s song “Boom, Boom, Boom, Let’s Go Back to My Room”.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that was it.  My memory is coming back and I believe the remake was mentioned on a videocast from Ben Patrick Johnson’s Life from the Left Coast and it all sort of went from there.  Enjoy!  Happy Friday.

Palin on Foreign Policy?

I’m curious.  Since the Vice-President often is involved in discussions on Foreign Policy and other concerns of national security along with the Secretary of State, how in the hell can we expect Palin to do this job succinctly?

From all reports, Palin meet with foreign leaders “behind closed doors” and largely discussed benign things like her children and grandchildren.  I have strong concerns that talking about joe sixpacks and hockey moms will do anything to avert an international crisis.

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The Land of “Joe Sixpacks” and “Hockey Moms”…

If you’re like me – and average person – you look around and scratch your head each time Sarah Palin refers to “all those Joe Sixpacks and Hockey Moms out there”.  

Personally, I don’t know a great deal of either; well, maybe more hockey moms than joe sixpacks – of course, in my area of the country the term of endearment, which in and of itself is somewhat of a stretch is “soccer mom”; these individuals usually can be found driving around in a aging minivan or upscale SUV generally on the way to or back from some type of athletic practice.

When I think of Joe Sixpacks my vision is somewhat different.  The “Joes” around here are overweight, educationally-challenged blue-collar workers whose only connection to a “sixpack” is the collection of 6 cans of Budweiser, Miller, or Coors that they pick up on the way home.  This is probably done in order to disconnect from the “hockey mom” and all the rugrats that await them at home after a long and exhausting day at work in a factory or mill which offers meager wages in exchange for hard work.

Maybe Alaska is the land of beautiful people – men with tight sixpack abs and women who are tasked with transporting their children from one sports event to another, but I highly doubt it.

Executive Arrogance; Corporate Glutony

As a sobering slap in the face to taxpayers, American International Group (AIG) reportedly continued to live lavishly providing its executives with bonus, trips and other perks.  This is arrogance and a blatant disregard for the rescue funding being provided to ailing firms by the U.S. taxpayers.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office recently sent a letter to the AIG Board of Directors a “Cease & Desist” letter, under the assumption that the activities of AIG relative to its executive compensation and perks is a violation of New York law, specifically, N.Y. Debtor & Creditor Law § 274, which deems such payments to be fraudulent conveyances.

Remembrances…

This weekend ushers in two importance remembrances.

The first is the celebratory recognition of the 20th Anniversary of NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY.  The day was founded by Dr. Robert Eichberg and Jean O’Leary in 1988, in celebration of the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights one year earlier, in which 500,000 people marched on Washington, DC, United States, for gay and lesbian equality. National Coming Out Day events are aimed at raising awareness of the LGBT community among the general populace in an effort to give a familiar face to the LGBT rights movement.  More information can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Coming_Out_Day, as well as many other websites online.

The second is a solemn but important recognition that it has been 10 years since Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation strives to keep the memory of Matthew and his suffering alive, so that no other member of the GLBT community will be affected in the heinous way that Matthew was murdered just for being who he was.  For more information about the foundation, please visit www.matthewshepardfoundation.org.  Make a donation if you can.  Sign up for the newsletter while your there.

Troopergate: Palin Abused Power of Her Office

The panel investigating Sarah Palin involvement in “Troopergate” has found that she violated one of the single most important tenets of public office – using elected office for personal gain.

Palin is said to have abused the power afforded to the Office the Governor by firing the Public Safety Commissoner when he refused to fire a state-trooper who just happened to be the Governor’s brother-in-law. At the time, Palin’s sister and the trooper were going through what has been described as a bitter divorce, and Palin alleges that threats were made by the trooper to her father; those allegations were denied.

The panel found that panel, as Governor, was well within her constitutional and statutory rights to fire any member of the Alaskan government, but it did find that one the separate issue of abuse of power that the govern was guilty as charged.