Dodd-Frank Bank Bill - 5 Yrs Later

This article is for those readers who enjoy "getting into the weeds." [The origin of this phrase comes from harvesting when your machine or tool is going closer to the ground than necessary to get most of the grain and is picking up weeds along with the crop.]

The stark reality: Dodd-Frank Banking Rules mandate over-regulation so Bank loans will be harder to qualify for and get due to limited funds as bigger Federal deposit reserves are required to cover debt values making even less money to loan to borrowers. 

More than 90% of the electorate does not understand this Banking Bill--a ten second commercial sound bite at election time tells them all what they know--sadly, many eyes glaze over to let politicians think for them!

Grand Central: Dodd-Frank at Five Years, No Victory Laps Please

Senators Christopher Dodd (D - CT) & Barney Frank (D - MA)-By Jon Hilsenrath - Wall Street Journal

Tuesday [July 21, 2015] marks the five-year anniversary of passage of the Dodd-Frank law that overhauled U.S. financial sector regulation. Let the debate now resume about whether the law has made the U.S. financial system safer.

Barney Frank, the former congressman who co-authored the bill, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that it certainly did; a successor as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., says in the WSJ it certainly did not.

In important ways, the financial sector clearly looks in less peril today than it was a few years ago. Financial sector debt has declined from 120% of total U.S. economic output in early 2009 to less than 80% in the fourth quarter, the lowest level in 15 years. Less debt in the financial sector makes the system’s edifice more stable. Banks, brokers, hedge funds, money market funds and others are less prone to panic selling when a shock hits asset values. They’ve got more capital to fall back on when losses hit.

Does Dodd-Frank deserve credit for this development? Not all of it. Much of this decline in financial sector debt took place before Dodd-Frank was enacted in July 2010 and even more of it took place before the law’s major provisions were implemented by regulators.  Banks and others reduced debt because the financial crisis scared them so badly.

The law can’t take full credit for some other important developments that have taken place in the regulatory arena. Federal Reserve officials have regularly described the central bank’s annual stress tests of large financial institutions as its key innovation of the post-crisis era. These annual exams – in which regulators imagine bad scenarios for the economy and financial system and ask banks to show how they would manage these scenarios – were an outgrowth of the government’s 2009 Supervisory Capital Assessment Program, developed during the crisis and preceding Dodd-Frank.

In many other respects, questions still loom over the nation’s financial architecture. The risk of some future financial asset bubble haunts policy makers. Fed officials, for instance, are getting agitated about soaring prices in the commercial real estate sector. Economists haven’t come up with a clear diagnosis of whether low interest rates caused the last bubble; they thus can’t describe what risks lurk behind the present state of even lower rates.

Nor have regulators gotten around to fundamentally restructuring the system of housing finance – notably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – which was behind the last crisis. The regulatory system that emerged from Dodd-Frank, moreover, remains highly balkanized, a regret Mr. Frank acknowledged in his interview with the WSJ. The law created new institutions, such as the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, without consolidating old ones like the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

This thickening soup of regulatory agencies is one reason why so many Dodd-Frank rules are taking so long to get written. As this WSJ graphic shows, regulators have missed deadlines on 79 rules that were supposed to be done by now.

Is the financial system safer? By some measures yes. But Wall Street executives and the regulators who oversaw them were – for the most part – highly confident it was safe in 2005 as well. It turned out to be on a precipice. Five years after Dodd-Frank, these players are all best served if they avoid taking victory laps.

Obama Economy Failure Exposed in Pictures

This is a montage of pictures of the Depression Era, 1935-39, 80 years ago. I bring up the age of the pictures because generations that follow do depend upon those before them to honestly tell what they are about. In this case, "Pictures do speak a thousand words." so not much more needs to be told; that said, I find our current President always waffling history facts and fabricating stories to suit his false, deceptive narratives to further his socialist agenda.

Many times during the past six and a half years which now is almost at the end of the Obama second term, Obama still complains things are still so bad. It's been since G.W. Bush's term as he has been trying his best to bring the United States out of that economic ditch. Well maybe he should see where we were as a nation way before under FDR, another Progressive Democrat. Yeah, Obama is right, with all his record IRS taxes collected, the highest in history, they have not helped to stem the flow of U.S. Federal spending programs yet!--it's hard to fill a hole if you keep digging it deeper--approaching $20 Trillion U.S. Debt and counting.

Do you remember these scenes during the Bush years?

Take a real look at an American family eating in 1940 New Mexico. The Depression is still not over yet as they hungrily devour Karo shortening laden flour biscuits with gravy, garden grown pickle relish or hot green peppers, creamed corn, okra gumbo and fresh milk.

OMG!...Where are these people's iPhones, flat screen TVs, Xbox game controllers, air conditioners and heaters, bottled water and SNAP EBT cards (Federal Food Stamp Cards)?--things must have been really tough back then!

Obama Lacks Grade School Level U.S. History

Where did President Obama study American History? 

 In June 2014, President Obama spoke of three former Presidents  making prisoner swaps at the end of wars that took place on their watch, "much like his swap" he said convincingly. CNS News.com carried this quote, "This is what happens at the end of wars," President Barack Obama boasted when he was asked about swapping American Army  Sgt. Bergdahl, a Deserter, for five vicious Taliban terrorists.                                                                                               

Obama then said, "That was true for George Washington... That was true for Abraham Lincoln and  that was true for FDR. That's been true of every combat situation, that  at some point, you make sure that you try to get your folks back. And that’s the right thing to do."

Really? Where did this guy study American history, his class in Indonesia?

That statement blatantly demonstrates that the most powerful man in the  World and two term President of the United States lacks even a grade school level of knowledge of American History; specifically, history as  it relates to three of his rather critical predecessors. It shows that we have essentially twice elected a foreigner who has no understanding of the very country over which he thinks he reigns supreme.

It also revealed how Obama's made grievous errors in judgment by concluding that:

1) The war is over and

2) Obama was engaging in a prisoner exchange like those examples among his list of stellar leaders. 

If one looks into the actual historical facts just a little, the glaring lack of truth is appalling :

The Revolutionary War ended in 1783. George Washington did not become president until six years later in 1789. Any prisoner negotiations had already been completed.

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in mid April of 1865. The Civil War ended the following month. He was still dead at that time. No deals were made to exchange prisoners after the war. All prisoners were simply freed.

FDR died of a stroke April 12, 1945 before the end of WWII September 2, 1945. President Harry S. Truman made the decision to drop two nuclear bombs on Japan on Hiroshima, August 6 and Nagasaki, August 7, 1945 ending World War II. We made no deals for prisoners then. We went in and released them wherever necessary.

If any Conservative President had made such an uninformed statement we'd never hear the end of it.

NOTE: None of the Presidents that Obama said were in office at the ends of those wars, making it impossible for them to make any sort of  prisoner swaps, let alone the Sgt. Bergdahl swap 5 for 1; plus unspecified cash for a  deserter.

It should be pointed out that countless deserters and traitors were shot or hung during all three of the aforementioned wars...

The Washington Post reported, "Ralph Peters, a retired lieutenant colonel and intelligence officer, wrote in National Review that a 'fundamental culture clash' exists between the president's team and those in the armed forces, as reflected by (national security adviser Susan) Rice's remarks on Bergdahl's honor."

"Both President Obama and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class," Peters wrote. "They have no idea of how great a sin desertion in the face of the enemy is to those in our military. The only worse sin is to side actively with the enemy and kill your brothers in arms. This is not sleeping in on Monday morning and ducking Gender Studies 101."

Contrary to Obama and Ms. Rice gushing glowingly about Sgt. Bergdahl's honor, the Army apparently doesn't agree. It has just been announced in late January, 2015 that a court marshal trial is scheduled for Sgt. Bergdahl--that's a home-run for our American team of soldiers! 

What amazes even more than the ignorance of the President is that he has somehow managed to surround himself with a staff that is just as clueless--Hello Valerie Jarrett, Sr. Advisor to the President ...an unelected official running the whole white house operations with really no special experience or extraordinary training at that level of management acumen, just Chicago-style rough and tumble political chicanery with some N.Y. Tammany Hall Union style democrat corruption, patronage and graft.

How Long Do Butterflies Really Fly?

"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever." 

Butterflies are one of the most widespread and largely recognizable insect orders in the world. The late astrophysicist Carl Sagan's observation was about how long people believe their lifetimes last contrary to actual scientific findings on the Lepidoptera. Available empirical evidence finds an average butterfly species has an adult life span of 2 weeks or less which supports Sagan's dire prediction of their timely demise in spite of the highly optimistic thinking to the contrary.

Humans in the United States according to the estimates of the 2015 Society of Actuaries report show the average 65-year-old woman is expected to live to 88.8 years and man to live to 86.6 years. With a more hopeful expectation for a longer life span than a butterfly, it still does not offer much comfort in the fact that an eternity in the hereafter is a lot longer time. Any way you cut it though, you won't beat the clock; it beats you by just running the time out to the end--Game over!

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) was an American astronomer who did much to popularize science, especially astronomy, during his illustrious career. He co-wrote and presented Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, a television series.By the way, Carl Sagan really did say “Billions and Billions” with great frequency over the course of the 13 original episodes of his 1980-1981 series Cosmos too. In that case, though, he was referring to how much time has passed since the creation of the universe generated the masses of materials which have morphed over the ages providing the building blocks to the biological evolution that developed before humans arrived upon the scene.

So one should add a preface before Sagan's quote saying, "Although butterflies took eons to evolve..." So then, the reality of billion and billions of years proceeding mankind will be acknowledged which only makes this gift of our life more precious, more amazing to behold since there is such a short time for appreciation that any human being can't even within a lifetime grasp the awe before it is gone. 

Expiration Dates are Important When You Fly

Thirty-four years ago, in 1978, during an all week San Diego business trip I came down with a debilitating flu that forced me to return home to Los Angeles midweek. I scheduled that Wednesday to take off at 9:00 am at Lindberg Field, but was so sick while leaving my hotel that I missed my flight and instead rescheduled it at 10:00 am. I should remind people that this was in the days of no 24/7 newscasts, iPhones, social media and the like. At that time, being ill, I was not interested in the newspapers or television, just getting to my flight on time.

As I arrived at the airport another passenger in line told me what had just happened, a mid-air collision. As I boarded my PSA Jet and sat down, I figured the possibilities of another crash like that had just moved up into the zillions to one chance for that kind of accident again that day. Anyway, I was so sick that I just wanted to fly home to go jump into bed. 

As I took off flying up through and over the black smoke as it was still wafting up into the skies from the air crash site, it was then the realization hit that it could have been me. After all, my PSA flight was out at 10:00 am since I missed it at 9:00 am which was a slight paradigm shift that avoided that shared commercial air space with smaller private aircraft, the combined early preemptive warning communication errors of flight tower controllers and both pilots which led to an unavoidable mid-air plane collision catastrophe killing everyone on board the airplanes with collateral victims on the ground. 

Message here? Everyone is born with an expiration date stamp on their forehead. Always look around at the other airplane passengers sitting next to you to make sure theirs is not stamped with that day's date...Hmmn.

Mid-air Collision kills 153

PSA Jet & Cessna Plane - The simulated picture here at the impact point shows that Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) Flight 182 was a Boeing 727-214 commercial airliner jet as it collides in mid-air with a private Cessna 172 over San Diego, killing 153 people at 9:00 am on Wednesday, September 25, 1978. The wreckage of the planes fell into a populous neighborhood and did extensive damage on the ground.

This was Pacific Southwest Airlines' first accident involving fatalities, the death toll of 144 makes it the deadliest aircraft disaster in California history. It was also the deadliest plane crash in the history of the United States until American Airlines Flight 191 went down eight months later.

David Lee Boswell and his instructor, Martin Kazy, were in the process of a flying lesson in a single-engine Cessna 1732 on the morning of September 25, practicing approaches at San Diego's Lindbergh Field airport. After two successful passes, Boswell aimed the Cessna toward the Montgomery Field airport northeast of San Diego.

At the same time, Pacific Southwest Flight 182 was approaching San Diego. The jet, a Boeing 727, was carrying 144 passengers and crew members from Sacramento, after a stopover in Los Angeles. Though air-traffic controllers at Lindbergh had told Boswell to keep the Cessna below 3,500 feet altitude as it flew northeast, the Cessna did not comply and changed course without informing the controllers.

The pilots of Flight 182 could see the Cessna clearly at 9 a.m., but soon lost sight of it and failed to inform the controllers. Meanwhile, the conflict-alert warning system began to flash at the air-traffic control center. However, because the alert system went off so frequently with false alarms, it was ignored. The controllers believed that the pilots of the 727 had the Cessna in view. Within a minute, the planes collided.

The fuel in the 727 burst into a massive fireball upon impact. A witness on the ground reported that she saw her "apples and oranges bake on the trees." The Boeing and Cessna nose-dived straight into San Diego's North Park neighborhood, destroying 22 homes and killing seven people on the ground. All 144 people on the 727 were killed, as well as both of the Cessna's pilots, 153 total.

The midair collision contributed to San Diego's Lindbergh Field airport being ranked 10th among the world's Most Extreme Airports in a two-hour documentary of the same name released in July 2010, which aired in the U.S. on the History Channel. The PSA 182 accident caused the revision of air traffic rules applicable to the busiest airports across the U.S., with the intention of improving separation of aircraft operating in the vicinity of large airports.