Romney's latest billionaire crony turned energy adviser. Harold Hamm.

He IS hydraulic fracturing and he IS the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline.  


Romney's camp is corrupt from top to bottom filled with cronies that will profit even more from his candidacy with a chance to win the Executive Branch.


It is the truth and there is no denying it.  If I may?

...Mitt Romney,(click here) the front-runner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, appointed Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm as energy adviser to his campaign.

Hamm, the 66-year-old founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Continental Resources Inc. (CLR), will be chairman of Romney’s Energy Policy Advisory Group, the candidate’s campaign office said in a statement today.

Hamm ranked 36th on Forbes magazine’s list last year of the 400 wealthiest Americans. His 68 percent stake in Enid, Oklahoma-based Continental, the largest leaseholder in the Bakken oil formation, had a value of $11.2 billion as of yesterday’s close....

Forbes has Hamm listed as the 33rd richest man in the USA.  He is worth more than this listing in Forbes:

Harold Hamm (click here)

Net Worth

$7.5 B As of September 2011

He is actually worth $8.6 billion.  You could easily call him a Dick Cheney protege.  He practically owns Oklahoma as the fourth largest economic operation in the state.  His fortune is comprised of primarily three enterprises and they are all entrenched in fossil fuels, there is nothing alternative energy about this guy.  He can't hold a candle to Secretary Chu.  Hamm would not know the business end of a nuclear reactor if his life depended on it.

His primary operation is "Continental Resources." 

ContinentalResources' Earnings Beat Last Year's by 63% (click here)

updated 2/23/2012 4:24:31 AM ET

By Seth Jayson

...Looking ahead Next quarter's average estimate for revenue is $493.1 million....

Hamm is one of the guys that eats dinner with your gasoline price at the pump.

...Continental's (click here) output has continued to rise over the past year as new wells in North Dakota and Oklahoma deliver strong results. Climbing oil prices have also helped the company's top line, though losses on derivative contracts have sometimes overshadowed higher revenue from oil and gas sales....

Continental is Hamm's oil operations in Oklahoma and North Dakota.  But, where his holdings gets really interesting in with "Hiland Partners" and "Hiland Holdings as mentioned below.

He (Hamm) also serves as Chairman of the board of directors (click here) of the general partner of Hiland Partners LP and as Chairman of the board of directors of the general partner of Hiland Holdings GP, LP ("Hiland Holdings"). Hiland Holdings owns the general partner interest and units in Hiland Partners LP. He also serves as a director of Complete Production Services, Inc., a NYSE publicly traded oil and gas service company. Harold is past chairman of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association and served as a founding board member of the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board. He was President of the National Stripper Well Association and founder and Chairman of Save Domestic Oil, Inc. He recently co-founded the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance to preserve the oil and gas markets for oil and gas produced in the United States. In 2011, he was inducted into the OIPA’s Wildcatters Hall of Honor, the association’s highest recognition.

Click here for Hiland Partners Asset Map. (click here)

The most northern location is Norse Natural Gas Gathering System in North Dakota.  

• Location: Williams, Divide and Burke Counties, North Dakota
• Miles of Pipe: 74 miles of natural gas gathering pipelines
• Gathering Capacity: 25,000 Mcf/d
• Processing Capacity: 25,000 Mcf/d
• Basin/Formation(s): Williston; Bakken Shale and Three Forks/Sanish

This is a map of the USA and Canada.  North Dakota is in the north next to Canada and Oklahoma is in the south next to Texas.

Right? To the right is the Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, just northeast of North Dakota. And below is the proposed route for the Keystone XL Pipeline, right through the middle of the "Hilard Partners" North Dakota properties.  I'll be darn.

The Keystone XL Pipeline goes all the way to Port Arthur Texas right through Oklahoma. Interesting. Strange coincidence. See, the other properties, of which there are four in Oklahoma, of "Hiland Partners" is their headquarter in Enid. Enid is about less than one hundred miles northeast of Cushing, Oklahoma. I mean how much of a map of cronyism has to be drawn to know how corrupt Romney's campaign is?

Hiland Holdings (click here) lets.Hiland Partners do all the work. The company owns a 2% general partner interest in the natural gas gathering and processing company. Hiland Partners serves primarily the Mid-Continent and Rocky Mountain regions of the US. It maintains natural gas gathering systems, processing plants, treating facilities, and NGL fractionation facilities. Hiland Partners supplies natural gas and NGL products to transmission pipelines and various markets. Hiland Partners chairman Harold Hamm owns about 32% of Hiland Holdings and plans to take both companies private.

Hiland Holdings is the processing operation for natural gas into liquified natural gas. He and good ole Boone are probably the best of buddies. Yeah, buoy.

If this news (click here) doesn't make T. Boone Pickens at least a little happy, then I don't know what will.  The familiar brown-clad package carrier, United Parcel Service(NYSE: UPS), has purchased 48 new liquified natural gas (LNG)-powered tractors to add to its long-haul fleet operating in the southwest U.S.  The vehicles, which will replace older generation diesel vehicles, are expected to produce 25 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions and displace 95 percent of fuel used by conventional diesel vehicles – an impressive savings of approximately 4,000 gallon a day for these 48 vehicles.

So there it is. The Romney Energy plan is to strip the USA of any reason to protect its agricultural lands and pump and frack until the cows come home. And Mr. Hamm's company Continental is doing really well. They are moving their headquarter soon to a different city in Oklahoma.

Our operations (click here) are focused on the Red River Units, Anadarko Woodford and Bakken field plays. Our operating strategy is to create shareholder value through organic growth and applying advanced technology to harvest oil and natural gas resources.

Although we evaluate strategic acquisitions periodically, our technical staff has internally generated substantially all of the opportunities for the investment of our capital.

Above is the operations map for Continental Resources.  I would just hate for them to run out of capital.  That would be a darn shame since they have such dedicated investment. So there is Romney's energy plan and the man in charge of it to make it all happen regardless of what is best for the USA and its agricultural sector and Clean Water Act.

The Drought is becoming a systemic problem.

The west coast is an increasing worry.  The southern border is experiencing it across the entire four states next to Mexico.  The Mississippi River System is holding up, but, the southeast USA is seeing a deeper drought.


The total picture is not improving.

Texas drought twists migrations of many birds (click title to entry - thank you)

Associated Press


Posted: Thursday, March 1, 2012 8:41 am

Strange things are aloft in the bird world.

Endangered whooping cranes flew 2,500 miles from Canada to Texas, where they usually spend the whole winter. Instead, they pecked around for a short time and flew back. In Nebraska, other cranes never left.

Some ducks just kept flying south _ all the way to Belize in Central America. And a snowy owl was spotted near Dallas, only the sixth time that's ever happened.

Throughout the winter, scientists have noticed these and other examples of bizarre bird migrations _ a result, they believe, of flocks becoming desperate for food and habitat becoming increasingly scarce because of the stubborn drought in Texas. The unusually mild winter in the Northeast and Midwest has even persuaded some birds they could stay put, fly shorter distances or turn back north earlier than normal....

It isn't just Texas profoundly effected by the drought.  This is Kansas.  Salina, Kansas is about in the center of the state.  This is from the Salina Journal News.  I think the University of Kansas is there.  No, no that is Manhattan, Kansas.  The State University is in Manhattan which is about 100 miles or so east of Salina.  Garden City, Kansas is near the west Kansas border.

Drought forces temporary move of 40 animals (click here)

3/1/2012


GARDEN CITY — A two-year drought is forcing the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) to move bison from the Sandsage Bison Range and Wildlife Area, near Garden City, to Maxwell Wildlife Area, in McPherson County north of Canton. The drought has depleted forage on the area, and the move is being made to protect both the sensitive range as well as the bison....

Breitbart croaked. He is being eulogized by Gohmert on the House Floor. Gohmert must have run out of things to ramble about today.

There is nothing natural about dying at age 43.  Must have been a broken heart over the deterioration of THE PARTY.

The man was a chronic liar manipulator and right wing opportunist.


Well, what are ya goin' to do?  

...The 43-year-old passed away unexpectedly from natural causes on Thursday.

Breitbart — the adopted son of a restaurant owner and a banker — was raised in a liberal, Jewish household in Los Angeles. He said his political outlook shifted after the Clarence Thomas hearings, in which the future Supreme Court Justice was grilled by Senate Democrats over Anita Hill's accusations of past workplace sexual harassment.

"It was the moment that I saw a glimpse of the matrix," Breitbart told ABC News last year. "And I started to ask some very tough questions of myself, and my peer group, and my parents and their friends."...

Right is Gohmert.  He is always on the House floor rambling on about something.  He is filling his time to day by making Breitbart a saint.


Sorry, but, there are enormously more journalists that actually risk their lives to tell the truth whom should be given that honor.  

Breitbart: Conservatives ‘outnumber’ liberals, ‘and we have the guns’ (click here)

Posted on 09.19.11

By Stephen C. Webster

Speaking to a Massachusetts tea party group recently, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart made some comments that are raising eyebrows online this week, telling the small gathering of Republicans that he sometimes wants to “fire the first shot.”

“I’m under attack all the time,” he said. “The call me gay. There are death threats… There are times when I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself, ‘Fire the first shot. Bring it on.’ Because I know who’s on our side.

“They can only win a rhetorical and propaganda war. They cannot win. We outnumber them in this country and we have the guns… I’m not kidding. They talk a mean game, but they will not cross that line because they know what they’re dealing with. ”

Breitbart added that “major named people in the military” will sometimes “grab” him and say, “Thank you for what you’re doing, we’ve got your back.”

Next time the House Floor is used to eulogize a journalist, make sure they carry a message of freedom and truth and not political exploitation of American values.  What Gohmert did was politics and not honor.

BEIRUT: The body of Marie Colvin, (click here) the American journalist who died last week during shelling in the central Syrian city of Homs, will likely be buried in Syria, her mother told CNN over the weekend.

Rosemarie Colvin says that aid workers have so far been unsuccessful in trying to remove her daughter’s body from Syria and have determined that it is too dangerous.

"We were told yesterday that today was probably the last day," the elder Colvin told CNN Saturday, speaking of attempts to transport her daughter's body out of the country.

Colvin added she believed her daughter was intentionally targeted....

The tornado season is becoming less of a season and more of a year round threat.

Tornadoes Kill at Least 12 in Midwest (click title to entry - thank you)

Soledad O'Brien of CNN stated the tornado impact within the last 24 hours stretched across 270 miles.

This map is where the density of night time tornadoes have a history of occurring.

Nighttime tornadoes (click here)are more dangerous because people are more likely to be asleep and not hear warnings....

There was only one major hurricane to hit the USA and a few minor tropical storms to reach North America last year. Irene was a Cat 3 storm and carried a wide diameter and huge amounts of water.
There were two other major hurricanes, Cat 4 Katina and Ophelia, but, they remained in the Atlantic. There were a total of nineteen storms in 2011 and only six made it to Cat 1 or more with only three being major of 3 and 4.
Hurricanes, as a rule, are a natural phenomena of Earth's physics that cool the troposphere by delivering heat into the oceans. That did not happen on a vast scale in 2011. The last time there was that kind of dynamic was 2005, the year of Katrina.
The incidence of tornadoes increase as the heat index of the troposphere increases. It is a simple relationship between tropospheric heat, available water vapor, hurricanes and tornadoes.  Tornadoes result because of the heat and hurricanes take the heat away from tornado occurrences. Therefore, if there is a weak hurricane season the incidence of tornadoes increases.  That has become all the more evident as we witness this Climate Crisis.

When Earth's troposphere was healthy, the incidence of tornadoes would be blunted by hurricanes. However, with water vapor moving up in the troposphere rather than on the surface of Earth as witnessed by changing 'mass balances' of glaciers and weather phenomena in the upper elevations, that means there is less water vapor AVAILABLE for hurricanes to harness and develop to remove the heat from the troposphere.

The higher incidence and year long occurrences of tornadoes is unnatural. Earth's troposphere is out of balance and becoming more dangerous every year that goes by.

Scott Brown states everything the Late Senator Ted Kennedy did was based in morals Brown practices.

Really?


That is according to the Boston Globe and the rebirth of the Blunt Amendment.


It would seem as though Senator Brown is lying, yet again.

Kennedy bills appear to undercut Brown

February 28, 2012

By Noah Bierman

The late Senator Edward M. Kennedy (click title to entry - thank you) sponsored bills in the 1990s and 2000s that would have required all employers who offer prescription drug coverage to include contraception coverage, an action that seems to undercut Senator Scott Brown’s contention that Kennedy shared his views on allowing exemptions based on moral objections.

The most recent version of the bill, in 2005, did not allow for exemptions based on moral objections of churches or other employers. Advocates said earlier bills were similar.

Brown, a Republican in a tough reelection battle, has come under fire from Democrats and one of Kennedy’s sons, former Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy, for invoking Kennedy’s name in support of his position. Brown has cosponsored a bill that would allow employers and insurers to exclude coverage of drugs and procedures that go against their moral views....

...But his son, Patrick Kennedy, and three former aides to the late Massachusetts senator say he never supported allowing employers to exclude health coverage for contraception, as Brown’s measure would do.

“Contraceptive insurance coverage is essential for women’s health,’’ Kennedy, then chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said during a 2001 hearing on the bill that would have extended insurance coverage for contraceptives....

Women need to file a lawsuit against Senator Brown for imposing discriminatory standards against women.  Women are BORN with a uterus not a reproductive disability!


Brown is taking everything out of context and giving it his own definition.  Besides, action speaks louder than words.  Senator Ted Kennedy NEVER presumed to have a conscience for every woman alive.  He RESPECTED them !!!

Karzai has no control of the country, he probably has no loyalty among any of the Taliban...

Violence has broken out across Afghanistan since Korans were burned at a U.S. military base two weeks ago.


...and this is the result.  The Taliban are trying to make 'Syria' happen in Afghanistan.


Since the USA has no strategic role and we are simply training soldiers, we need to leave.


When Jordan trained Iraqi soldiers they did it on their own turf.  Unfortunately, in a return to Iraq the soldiers returning from Jordan were ambushed.  


I sincerely suggest the USA move its training facilities from Afghanistan to Turkey.  There is no reason to continue in Afghanistan, there will be an escalation of violence and innocent people will die.

Every household, every business office, every police station, every fire department and every school principal's office should have a NOAA Weather Radio.

It should be standard practice for every household no  matter what city, no matter what state, no matter what territory of the USA to have a NOAA Weather Radio.


This one is advertised at REI for $39.95 (click title to entry - thank you). I am sure there are other places to purchase them including local stores.  This one is a "Midland WR-120 Weather Radio".  Be sure it is a reliable brand when purchasing.


It is more than tornadoes.  A NOAA weather radio will alert the listener to severe weather no matter what it is, severe thunderstorm and local flooding as well.  This is not a joke.  This is survival in the age of the Climate Crisis.  The tornado outbreak that hit and is hitting the USA today is very early in the season for any type of outbreak.  The arctic air from the north slammed into tropical air from the equator.  


Get for real.  These little radios should be everywhere.


AND PUT THE BATTERY in them as well as plugging them in so the batteries don't run out.  Pay attention to the strength of the batteries and not put any in the radio with expiration dates that indicate they are marginal to use.


Do this.  Seriously.

The GM-Peugeot deal is an empty deal. Basically Peugeot couldn't get an operating cost loan.

Both CEOs should be fired.  Something one would never see with Bain Capital handling the 'deal.'


The 'deal of all deals' is that Peugeot gets operating CASH and GM gets to have parts for their cars.  By the year 2016 both manufacturers will be using the same internal parts for their manufacturing.  It is a consolidation of manufacturing that will create 'sameness' between the two auto makers and not really achieve anything.  Supposedly, by purchasing raw materials and possibly consolidating work forces (either in the USA or Europe has been decided yet) both will save money.  GM never does the right thing for the people of the USA.  Here we go again. Either way, it will Europe or the USA that will take an economic hit from this.  Peugeot should have fired their CEO when they ran out of liquidity.


Why does that sound familiar?


So, while Phillipe Varin, CEO of Peugeot (above) should have been fired, now, both should be canned off the job.


I think it was Ford in 2008 that didn't need a bailout and borrowed all the monies it needed at 0% interest rates?  Yes?  Yep.


...As part of the deal, (click title to entry - thank you) GM intends to take a 7% stake in the French automaker. Peugeot intends to raise $1 billion in new capital.


The two companies are seeking efficiencies that will make them more competitive in Europe's car market.


GM's European business lost €700 million there last year and the company has said it's determined to turn it around.


The two companies said in a joint statement that they'll continue to sell their own vehicles independently and on a competitive basis. The deal will mean they can leverage a combined purchasing volume of $125 billion with suppliers....


So, let's see purchasing raw materials jointly is going to save them all that money?  


Shhhh....


I don't think so.  Raw materials are commodities and that is where all the Wall Street money is now.  Not going to happen.  GM now owns 7% of Peugeot, that's all.  GM stockholders will get their share of ? Profits ?.  And given Varin's track record.  Like.  What dividends?


As of right now Wall Street is coveting the deal and will suck the living life out of it. 


So, by 2016, the two companies will have to downsize their manufacturing plants and consolidate parts to their vehicles.  And don't tell me for one minute they don't know it. 


Wall Street sees this as a matter of 'synergy.'  "Sameness in energy."  I think the outcomes are more than obvious.  The synergy is the bargaining chip for investors.  I think it is called 'investor confidence.'  Which is why the market is over 13000.


No matter which way one looks at this it is consolidation.  Raw materials is an excuse for outsourcing either to Europe or the USA.  There are unions at both manufacturers, so its anyone's guess.

...Jean-Pierre Mercier, (click here) union representative at Peugeot's factory in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint Denis, said 1,900 French manufacturing jobs would be cut, along with another 3,100 in areas like sales, information technology and research and development.

"The group's international development can't be carried out by cutting our jobs here given that we're the ones who created PSA's wealth," Mercier said on the sidelines of a works council meeting.

Hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the meeting, which took place at Peugeot's Paris headquarters near the Arc de Triomphe....

What 'the deal' will do is pit the two unions against each other to keep jobs.  It would be better if they spoke to each other long before the demolition happens.  There is a way out of this for the unions and it surrounds the manufacturing of parts.  I have mentioned on this blog before how non-unionized shops are being set up by heavy investment to undermine the sale of parts from manufacturers.

If Peugeot and GM can be convinced to not only manufacturer vehicles but maintain their own plants for parts it would continue to employ workers and insure quality.  Now, that is a deal with a sustainable economic impact because we all know without employment their products are worthless if they can't sell them.

The challenges to any CEO is not about consolidation to find profits.  That is the OLD WORLD.  It is a profoundly bad habit.  But, the real challenge to CEOs is to expand their market share by employing more people and recapturing the business that is rightfully theirs from the thieves of Wall Street and the Billionaires set on 'cheap profits' by selling mimiced parts and cheap knock offs like batteries.


Fisher Body was actually a valuable asset to GM because it was quality.  Quality and employment at plants that supply it is the future of any corporation.  For every employee with a sustainable job the market share increases.  Consolidation is for failing corporations, not ones with a future.  Unions insure the future of a company through strengthening market share and building consumer confidence.  


Consumer Confidence IS in just a few words: "How do I know that I am getting what I pay for?" Reputation is a good beginning.

Consolidation of any aspect of a company cheapens it best returns. Consolidation profits are short term bonus returns and not the ensured longevity of the company. It is boom and bust.  It is THE BUBBLE and not the stability.


AC Delco and Interstate Batteries have always competed.  Interstate is an incredible battery and after the AC went dead in the GM, I always purchased interstate.  They'll start anything, anywhere.  I think it is called quality,  Interstate batteries will start a rock rolling.  Literally. 


When there are independent parts manufacturing there is not only a change in the quality of the product, but, also a decrease in market share.  Sure the independent blood suckers hire employees, but, they aren't necessarily employees, such as those in India and China and Iraq, that will purchase products.  The independent blood suckers aren't paying union wages and shrink market share.  They shrink market share even for their own products.  


Relinquishing any market share for parts manufacturing is simply not good business.  How can GM claim to be able to insure the best outcomes to their products if mechanics are not using GM parts?  Why are manufacturers of major products simply shrugging their shoulders and giving up without a fight?  It makes absolutely no sense from any standpoint.

It looks like China took home a message of hope after visiting the USA.

Is it more than we can hope for to believe he loves his people more than power?

U.S.: North Korea agrees to suspend nuclear activities (click title to entry - thank you)

Updated 13m ago

The announcement comes little more than two months after the death of longtime ruler Kim Jong Il, and suggests North Korea has met the key U.S.preconditions for restarting multi-nation disarmament-for-aid talks that the North withdrew from in 2009.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the North has agreed to allow International Atomic Energy inspectors to verify and monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment and confirm disablement of its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

Her statement says the U.S. will meet with North Korea to finalize details for a proposed package of 240,000 metric tons of food aid....

How does a 99% Bank begin? Easy. Ready? Okay.

The 99% Bank has to have a committed membership and/or depositors.


The terms to the savings accounts are different than what is found on the market today.


Imagine a bank where THREE PERCENT interest is amortized annually.  Not daily, not monthly but annually.


Then imagine having 2000 depositors.  More?  Sure.  But, let's start with 2000.


Those depositors have savings accounts whereby they deposit $1 per week.  Besides their checking accounts IF there are checking accounts offered.


$1 per week deposit is a cash inflow of $2000 per week.  Anyone can take if from there.  $5 per week.  $10 per week.  $20 per week.  


Now, where does the THREE PERCENT interest come from?  Growing the local economy that's where.  A small portion of those very liquid assets, let's say 10% ONLY is invested with repayments of loans monthly.


Ever hear of Microloans?  They work.  They work exceptionally well and there is not a bank in the USA that specializes in them.


The monthly repayment incurs interest of 0.3%.  In ten months the monies loaned will have earned THREE PERCENT interest.  If the monthly repayment is 0.4%, the monies will have not only made three percent interest, but, four percent and that is called OPERATING EXPENSES.  If the loan is repaid at 0.6 percent interest monthly that is not only operating expenses but the payment of THREE PERCENT interest to the annual amortized payments to all the depositors.


In the meantime, the bank has 90% liquid equity and growing its own.


What is happening with the loans?  They are regrowing the economy, putting people into small businesses, probably working out of their homes.  


So, therefore, what is happening to the deposits to the 99% Bank?  They are taking on different definitions, now there are business accounts.  There is growing wealth in the community and the bank becomes more secure.


The key to the 99% Banks is growth and financial fiscal security as demonstrated by sound investment.


What happens to those that have taken loans and are repaying them with SIMPLE INTEREST?  They are proving their ability to be responsible with money and they are developing a new base of 'credentialing' for credit.


This is not difficult.  It can begin with a 'Union' of interested citizens.  It doesn't have to be called a bank.  It can be called any darn thing anyone wants to call it.

Is Romney better than Reagan?

Absolutely.


Reagan was the best front man Wall Street had.  He actually believed his own reality while Wall Street robbed the country blind.


Romney will actually be a better actor than Reagan to allow Wall Street's continued destruction of the security of the Middle Class, the further victimization of the Poor and removal of all that stands between the people of the USA and Wall Street owing the world.


Heck, Reagan wasn't nothin' compared to Romney, after all it was Romney that created poverty and dressed it up in a salesperson uniform.

Is this sick or what? The West can't even place sanctions on a nuclear threat without Plutocrats siphoning profits.

By John Kemp

U.S. and EU sanctions on Iran’s crude oil exports and its central bank were not supposed to affect either the volume of oil available or its price,provided markets reacted “rationally.” (click title to entry - thank you)


Rationally?  They better act rationally!  Why is this even an option?

The free market system is threatening national security of many nations.  When is this mess going to stop?  Does anyone actually believe opportunistic plutocrats will resist anything but Wall Street chaos to drive up prices?  Hell, no.

Wall Street is exploitation.  There was a time when it wasn't.  It was where investors went to find opportunity, but, these days it is about scalping short term gains ASAP if not by the minute.  It is hideous.  This is no longer an investment market, it is Las Vegas.


An entire generation of Americans are rooked out of their future because greed merchants rob cash from markets and sequester it in their own bank rolls.


Then we see liquidity companies, private liquidity companies offering IPOs to obtain more cash out of the markets.  


Look, Wall Street crashed when it hit 14,000 and we are seeing private liquidity companies looking for more money to run their operations in offering IPOs.  Where does any reasonable person see this going?


In the good ole' days, investors liked their dividends because it allowed them financial security.  They bankrolled those dividends to retire and if they owned enough stock they could actually quit their day jobs.


Example:


A dear family friend, about four decades ago, touted the benefits of mutual funds. You know what he did for a living?  He was an independent business person of a small business called a shoe store.  The kind of shoe store where the proprietor worked along with those he hired to actually fit the customer's foot.  


When he paid for his shop and his home and had money saved besides he looked at a place where that money could make interest more than he was making at his shop.  It was sitting in a bank account and he wanted to earn more than 5%, which was the going rate back then.  So, he invested in the least risky stock market offering, The Mutual Fund.


Granted the stock market had an overall value of $1000 back then, but, what does that tell you?


That is the kind of analogy that should exist today, but, over time the markets got greedy and they actually believed they could out perform banks in offering 5% savings accounts, so they 'thunk up' the 401K.  That was the beginning of the end of Middle Class security.  


Now, the tail is waging the dog.  There is absolutely no security for the Middle Class, the American Dream has been trashed and national security is at the whim of market pressures.


I DON'T THINK SO.


It isn't enough that the security of the Middle Class is gone, now political cronies want to buy elections so the entire of SSI and Medicare can be in their coffers, too. 


Hello, America?  Where have you gone?  Where are your local savings accounts?  Where are the banks that sincerely know you personally and value you for your deposit of $20 per week?  Isn't saving 5 to 10 percent of your earnings enough for you?  What makes anyone believe a savings account isn't more secure than an investment?  It is backed by the FDIC, Wall Street should have such guarantees.


Oops, there I go touting big government again.

"I wanna be like Ford feeling." GM is creating it's own emergency again.

Remember all the cash GM was bank rolling to insure against any future market collapse?  For some reason the CEO can't seem to leave it alone.

By Philipp Halstrick and Laurence Frost

FRANKFURT/PARIS

Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:36am EST

(Reuters) - French car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen's (PEUP.PA) alliance talks with General Motors (GM.N) may yet fail as the U.S. automaker hesitates over criticism from investors, a source with knowledge of the discussions said.

Intense public scrutiny is also undermining the draft deal, in which GM would take a small Peugeot stake as part of a 1 billion euro ($1.34 billion) share issue by the cash-strapped French automaker, the source said, adding: "This is not a done deal yet."

Peugeot has yet to offer any public statement, more than 18 hours after France's AMF market watchdog demanded a response to press reports on the discussions that sent its shares yo-yoing. GM has also declined to comment.

The Detroit-based automaker is not completely convinced by the draft deal on the table, the source said.

GM shares have dropped 4.4 percent since the alliance plan was first reported by a French newspaper on February 21, while Peugeot's have advanced 6.6 percent....

GM will be competing against its own products with this investment.  Where are the unions when you need them?  GM will fail again.  This was its downfall before!  Those bonuses must be amazingly attractive, but, alas the price of GM stocks fall again.