A Man Made Disaster

 This weekend I went on a little vacation to the beach -- Destin, FL to be exact  -- and when I was not relaxing with friends or seeing the sites I talked about oil.  In fact we all talked about oil.  Coming into the weekend the weather was supposed be sunny through Sunday, but as I arrived on Friday in my rental car I was only greeted by a blanket of rain.  On Saturday the beach welcomed me with a brown murky film in the water, and cautionary red flags on the beach that warned of the perils of swimming in the ocean, or flat out forbade the activity. 

The rest of the weekend remained overcast and foggy, and I distinctly remember hearing a jet fly overhead, but due to the fog I could only make out its shadow as it flew by.  The peculiarities with the weather caused many people to ask questions and wonder if all of this was a result of the oil spill, but no one had any answers.  All we knew was that we needed to know more, and that we may need to prepare for a catastrophic environmental disaster.

The more you know about this disaster the less sense the entire situation makes, but the video below gives an explanation to the situation we face.

Essentially, BP was drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico in waters roughly 5,000 feet deep and on April 20th its offshore drilling platform caught fire for unknown reasons killing 11 BP employees.  BP was unable to stop the fire and eventually the drilling platform sank into the Gulf of Mexico.  When the platform sank it pulled the pipe that carried the oil from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico with it, and this caused the three breaks that have leaked over 3 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Initially, one could argue that accidents happen and that that is the price one must pay for nearly any activity.  Accidents happen and we have to live with this fact, but bizarrely we cannot use this logic with this situation.  If we are to assume that accidents happen then we must also anticipate that all parties are prepared to deal with this accident, and that obviously has not been the case in this disaster.  The above video shows that BP has three possible solutions for solving this disaster, but that they are not sure if any of them will work.  5,000 feet is a depth that BP is not accustomed to drilling in, and therefore they are not sure if their equipment can sustain the pressures at that depth.  However, they will try their best, but obviously their best is not good enough.  Their best is not good enough because a company cannot advocate the safety of offshore drilling and then be unprepared to deal with an accident; especially when you consider the harm that an accident would cause.  Being unprepared is not an accident -- it is incompetence.

It is incompetent and greedy to drill for oil at depths that would make it impossible to adequately deal with a leak, and no one should condone these actions.  Ideally, BP should never have been given the approval to drill in this area, yet that is another issue for another day.  However, we do need to consider that in February of 2009 BP said to the government that it could handle a leak of 6.8 million gallons a day, and that it is currently struggling to handle a leak 210,000 gallons a day.  Firstly, BP grossly over estimated its readiness, and secondly the government and people in general need to understand the dangers of a 6.8 million gallons a day leak.  The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 only leaked 10.8 million gallons of oil and that was the greatest oil related environmental disaster of all time, yet now we find it appropriate to entertain the prospect of an offshore oil drill that could leak out 6.8 million gallons in one day.  Under this scenario, a leak that lasted for a little over a day and a half would result in the greatest oil related environmental disaster in history, and I doubt that BP's ability to handle the issue would result in closing the leak in less than two days.  Proceeding to drill offshore with this possible scenario does not make any sense and is only asking for another disaster, and people need to understand this before they consider offshore drilling.

As this issue in the Gulf of Mexico continues over the coming months people will become more and more inclined to allocate blame to numerous parties.  Conservatives will find a way to say that Obama was unprepared for this disaster, and some people such as former FEMA head Michael Brown may even state that Obama and other liberals wanted this disaster because it will allow them to push for their environmental agenda.  Liberals will blame Obama because roughly a month ago he advocated the use of offshore oil drilling as a part of the nation's comprehensive environmental agenda.  Others will blame BP because this disaster is frankly their fault, and I find no fault in blaming BP.  BP needs to pay for as much of the clean up as humanly possible, and I could care less about how this could harm BP.  However, at a certain point we need to get past allocating blame, and instead we should decide what to do next.  Now that the true costs of domestic offshore oil drilling should be evident to all we need to reassess how America should address its energy needs.

Last week the Obama administration approved the creation of Cape Wind the first offshore wind farm in America.  Cape Wind will be located off the coast of Cape Cod, MA and will consist of 130 wind turbines.  The turbines will be located between 4 - 11 miles off the cost and will generate 170 megawatts of electricity or roughly 75% of the energy needs for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.  This may be progress in the right direction, but this is America so people have to find something to complain about.  The complaints range from the idea that the turbines will be too ugly or that they will interfere with Native American religious traditions, and these complaints may have merit when you ignore the alternatives, but now ignoring the dangers of an oil dependent energy infrastructure cannot be ignored.  Wind energy may not be perfect and it will not solve all of our problems, but it must be considered a welcomed alternative to the prospect of the dangers of an oil leak.

We all need to know that BP will do its best to stop this leak because it is in their best interests to do so, but we all must not forget that their best is no longer good enough.  Their best has resulted in 11 deaths and over 3 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.  As a society we need to understand that we should be able to find a better way to obtain energy.  This is not an issue that involves good guys and bad guys, but instead one that has established standards.  11 deaths and over 3 million gallons in the Gulf of Mexico should be below all of our standards.  Our standards should implore us to entertain other forms of energy, and while we debate our next move more oil will continue to flow into the Gulf of Mexico.

Sanctioning or Opening Up to Iran?

On Tuesday, March 9, 2010, Brazil’s president warned that U.S.-proposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program could lead to war. "We don't want to repeat in Iran what happened in Iraq.  It's not prudent for the world, it's not prudent for Iran," Silva said, AP interview.

Iran has been under US sanctions for nearly 30 years dating back to the hostage-taking crisis.  Ever since various economic, trade, scientific and military sanctions against Iran were practiced by the US and many other countries.

The purpose of sanctions today is based on mistrust in the nuclear ambitions of Iran, and was intended to put further pressure on the Iranian regime. The sanctions ban various companies to have economic ties with Iran. Therefore, the imposed sanctions have had a lot in shaping today’s economy of Iran. The kind of shaping that has not necessarily made things better for a better future and a better relationship with the region. In fact, many today claim the opposite. If you get a hold of any young Iranian today who has recently left the country, it is unlikely that he doesn’t have a personal story of how hard or how much he tried to have his own business but could not succeed.

We are talking millions and millions of unemployed educated students who are looking for jobs in a country under the embargo. I, for one, tried several times to start businesses with the help of friends throughout my undergraduate and graduate life and have seen many others doing so in the mean time. Here is a small list of the problems we encountered. No foreign investors, no credit card of any kind, no ability to buy or sell any products abroad, no ability to open up international bank accounts. On many occasions communication or even correspondence was out of question. My understanding after living in a country under the embargo for so many years is that you can try to explore creative ideas and various markets but one thing stays the same, the money is always in the hands of the government. So, you end up with two choices, stay and work for the public sector under a compliant non-enthusiastic atmosphere, or leave the country. This is especially true if you do not come from a wealthy family.

The sanctions have frustrated people and limited their option in terms of living to working with or being linked to public sector, namely the government. And as much as I understand it, with limitations, come monopoly. Monopoly in economy, if not political power. It has actually hindered the trend for change rather than favored it.

On the other hand, uplifting certain sanctions, at least in terms of communication can be of great help for bringing about any constructive change. For instance, Reza Zia-Ebrahimi discusses how providing high-speed internet access by satellites can expose different sources of information and disrupt the monopoly of information currently practiced by the state-run media in Iran.

Roger Cohen also touches on the inefficiency of the sanction and how it is actually acting as an obstacle sometimes for democratic movements and the dialogs that are taking place within the country. For instance, it has been many months where the censorship Research Center has been trying to send the software Haystack, which makes it nearly impossible for censors to detect what Internet users are doing, to Iranian users. But thanks to sanctions, they cannot do so.

Uplifting certain sanctions against Iran can signal a more promising future for the US-Iran relations. In the mean time, it can make life easier for many young people who are struggling to bring about change in their country.

The following video is an interview with Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian peace prize laureate, on sanctions against Iran.



Black America Rising

On this weeks show we discussed the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana.  Enjoy.

Download the episode HERE.

The Sunday Knight - Terrorism in Reverse

Joseph Stack flew his airplane into this building and became a domestic suicide bomber

This has been a fascinating week concerning terror and the United States in that everything has been reversed yet no one knows how to feel about this reversal of fortune.  This past Thursday Texan Joe Stack flew his airplane into an Austin, TX building that housed a branch of the Internal Revenue Service.  Joe Stack was an American who disapproved of our tax codes and now he is an American suicide bomber.  At the same time that an American was bombing Americans, the U.S. military along with many allied forces was having their most successful raid on the Taliban.  The raids that the military has engaged in over the last week have reportedly captured three top ranking Taliban officials.  To finish off the week we have just gotten the news that the Secretary of the Defense Robert Gates wants to change the name of the war in Iraq from operation Iraqi Freedom to operation New Dawn.  All three of these events play a very large part in how Americans view their security and safety, and these new developments need to be examined further.

Click to read more ...

"Too Dumb to Thrive"

Joe Klein had this nice article concerning the Stimulus Package, and how American's are so angry about it because they know absolutely nothing about it.  American's are spending too much time being angry that they cannot even see when someone is helping them.

To quote Joe Klein,

It is very difficult to have a democracy without citizens. It is impossible to be a citizen if you don't make an effort to understand the most basic activities of your government. It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you're a nation of dodos.

In a nation that has so much, it remains amazing how people can still know so little.  This ignorance does a disservice to everyone.

You can read his article HERE.

The Fastest Train in the World

The Fastest Train in the World

China on Saturday unveiled the worlds fastest train with a reported max speed of a blistering 394.2 kilometers per hour (245 mph) and an average speed of 350 kph (217.5 mph).  In comparison the bullet train in Japan travels at 243 kph, and the TGV in France travels at 277 kph.  The train will cover the 1,069 kilometer distance between Guangzhou and Wuhan in a little over three hours.  Before this train it would take roughly 10 hours to cover the 1,069 kilometers.  To put it in perspective, the distance between Atlanta, GA and New York City is 1209 kilometers or 751 miles.  In this new train, you could travel from Atlanta to New York City in three and half hours without even leaving the ground.  That would be truly revolutionary.

The creation of this new train and this railway is all part of a Chinese program to create jobs during the economic downturn.  They plan on increasing their national rail network from 86,000 kilometers to 120,000 kilometers, and have 42 high speed rail-lines by 2012.  This could have a profound affect on the Chinese landscape by connecting the people to all areas of China like never before.

As an outside observer one cannot approve of the governments suppression of dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo who advocate increased rights for the Chinese people, yet one also must appreciate the ability to successfully create national programs that will revolutionize their country while also setting a higher standard for the rest of the world.  By 2012 China will have the second largest rail-line network in the world, only behind the United States, but theirs will have 42 high speed trains and no other country can match that.  Whether you like China or not you must respect this statistic.

To read more about the high speed rail-line go HERE.

To read more about Liu Xiaobo go HERE.

Obama in Copenhagen

President Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen today and expressed his frustration at how world leaders have failed to come to an agreement concerning climate change, yet at the same time he could not present an American alternative.  Yes American seems willing to work towards preventing climate change, but our efforts and offers concerning the issue are far below those of the European Union, Japan, and Russia.  President Obama had this to say on the matter,

"No country will get everything that it wants."

This pragmatism I feel has grown from two differing views of America:  the America everyone wants vs the America that actually exists.

The world hopes that America's new charismatic President will rekindle the worlds love for America by swooping in and saving the day.  In his first year he has travelled all over the world reestablishing international relationships and now these friendships should show some benefit.  They want President Obama to talk to the Chinese, and convince them to set climate targets that are subject to international law.  They want President Obama, the commander-in-chief, of the most powerful country in the world to set a bold statement about America's commitment to reducing climate change by setting audacious standards for reducing carbon emissions, funding alternative energies, and funding for developing nations.  This is what the world wants America to be, but this is not modern day America.

America does not want to change, and they do not want to lead the world in that change.  America today fights its hardest to stay the same, and that makes it worse.  Congress currently argues the benefit of universal health care while more Americans become uninsured everyday.  Member countries of the European Union, Japan, and even Russia have forms of universal health care, and all acknowledge the benefit of socialized medicine.  Additionally, we have members of Congress who argue about whether climate change is even real or just an elaborate hoax being played on the world, but scientists who hate big business. Before we even know it congressmen will argue about whether we actually landed on the moon.  Americans also boast about the validity of creationism, the insanity of Darwin, and the necessity of school prayer.  Despite the greatness of this country and the potential it possesses we seem incapable of stepping up to the plate in large enough numbers for it to matter.  Yes the President tries, and so do some members of Congress, but thus far it does not seem like enough.

At present we have a limp, if not counter-productive health care bill being debated in the Senate, that if passed would only allow us to not fall farther behind the world in health care.  The economy does not appear to be improving, and we still have two wars to solve.  We may have elected superman as our President, but America appears to have krytonite in abundance.  The ideal America may want to solve the problems in Copenhagen, but the actual America prevents it from doing so.

For more info on President Obama's Copenhagen trip go HERE.

To get more insight into President Obama's predicament go HERE.

The Conscience of Trafficking Legal Drugs

Yesterday the Senate voted against a bill form Sen. Byron Dorgan that would allow for the legal reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada.  Due to pharmaceutical drugs from Canada being cheaper in Canada than they are in the United States despite them being the same drug, this would allow Americans to get prescription drugs for less.  On the face of it this is something that could really help many people.  Americans would have to spend less money to stay healthy, and with the money they save they could afford to stay in their house.  They could save the money, or run up credit card debt.  Maybe they could even go on a vacation.  Either way they would save money, but before you decide that reimportation is great and that we must do it you must look a bit closer.  

Upon looking closer, it no longer becomes something we should do, but instead becomes something we need to do.  There are obvious downsides for the companies that charge Americans more money for prescription drugs, but no one should care about that.  People should have a greater allegiance to people and everyones quality of life than they should have for a giant company.  Companies a good, but all they are supposed to do is make a profit and dish out pay checks.  They are very simple, yet people seem to care more about a company's stability instead of the health and financial stability of millions of Americans.  This logic is backwards, and was on display in the Senate.

However, I will cut the Senate some slack on this one, but not because they did the right thing.  They did the wrong thing, but I will not say that they do not care about Americans.  They however do not seem to understand what corporations or governments are supposed to do.  This is evident from their concern for doughnut holes and PhRMA.  In the Senate doughnut holes are not delicious, and do not come from Dunkin Donuts, but instead represent the gap in time where Medicare recipients must pay full price for prescription drugs.  (Yeah I did not see that coming either).  PhRMA is the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and they lobby on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies in America.  They for obvious reasons do not want cheaper drugs to come into America.  They will lose money.  Companies do not like losing money.

So the situation is this.  Sen. Dorgan wants Americans to pay less for pharmaceutical drugs, Senators want Americans to pay less for drugs during the doughnut hole gap, and PhRMA wants everything to stay the same.  My thinking would conclude that Sen. Dorgans amendment would pass since it would help during the doughnut hole gap and beyond, but that obviously did not happen.  What did happen was that the amendment was defeated, and now Congress wants to talk to PhRMA about how to close the doughnut hole gap.  This is crazy, and this is why.

"We have had absolutely no discussions with anyone in the Senate or the White House about how they plan to pay for closing the doughnut hole. It's a laudable goal, but we are already committed to providing a huge amount of money to help seniors who hit the coverage gap, and no one has asked us to date to provide any additional funding," said Ken Johnson, senior vice president of PhRMA

PhRMA does not want to pay more money, and this has nothing to do with them being good or bad.  It has everything to do with them being a company, and companies have profit driven goals.  Why would they want to give away more money after their competition, reimportation, was defeated.  That would not make any sense.  That would be literally throwing money away.

We, as Americans, need to stop expecting corporations to have consciences, and instead hope that people have them.  If corporations had consciences then they would not have a focus on profits, and then they would not be a corporation.  Instead they would be a non-profit organization which in essence is what the government is supposed to be.

For more info on Sen. Dorgan's amendment and the lack of perspective or conscience in the Senate go HERE.

The Year in Pictures - A Beautiful Oasis and Taking the Time to Exhale

Time Magazine released their Year in Pictures special today, and as I perused the images one fact became frighteningly obvious.  Few positive events have occurred over the past year.  Many pictures depict wars ranging from the Middle East to Africa and even pirates in the Indian Ocean, others show death including celebrities, politicians and fallen aircraft.  Others showed the hardships resulting from the economic down turn ranging from tent cities, to vacated buildings.  The Iranian revolution occupies many pictures and it should, yet apart from the gorgeous artistic photo this may be the second most positive image from the series.  The Iranian people may not have won, but at least they are fighting for the right things.  The main images that displayed positivity where the many that featured Barack Obama.

I must admit that I have supported Barack Obama since before he declared that he would run for the presidency, so it only makes sense that I would find something positive amongst his images, yet that was not the case here.  President Barack Obama truly was the only positive image from the 47 pictures that Time selected.  He was the oasis in the midst of the depressing desert that has become the news.  This should indicate the work that needs to be done to improve our surroundings, but it also indicates that we may have created a good starting point.  Only Time will tell.

I recommend that we work hard to improve our world, but never be afraid to check the time (or the date) and exhale (or inhale) deeply.

Thousands of people on the quad at the University of Colorado in Boulder exhale marijuana at 4:20 p.m. on April 20, an annual ritual marking the drug's unofficial national holiday. To view Time Magazines "The Year in Pictures" go HERE.

Copenhagen UPDATE

"We're going back," Pa Ousman Jarju from the delegation of Gambia, told Reuters after a meeting of the African group.

The African countries have been coaxed back to the discussion tables after the conference was suspended for about half a day due to them pulling out of talks.  The conference can recommence now.

This seems like a good strategic decision by the African group, but only time will tell.  They needed to flex their muscles to illustrate that they cannot be ignored, and effectively calling an end to talks will make sure you are not ignored.  However, the remaining days will determine if this disruption caused more harm than good.

Job Sharing May Avert Unemployment Crisis

Germany just like the United States is in the middle of an economic downturn, yet they have managed to keep their unemployment rate around 7.5% while the United States' has recently ballooned to 10.2%.  One of the major factors in Germany being able to control the unemployment problem could reside in their "kurzarbeit" policy which literally means short work.

When a company has a 20% decrease in revenue the common strategy is layoffs.  Otherwise you have idle employees who are costing the company money while not increasing profits.  Under "kurzarbeit" the German company instead reduces the employees working hours by 20%, and then the federal government provides the employee with 60% of their lost salary.  For example, if an employee makes $1000 a week their new reduced salary will be $800.  Also if they worked on a 40 hour work week, they will now work on a 32 hour work week.  Additionally, the government will now provide them with 60% of the $200 they lost for the week, or $120.  This way people stay employed, companies are able to balance their books, and it becomes easier to get out of the crisis.  Firing and then hiring employees is much more expensive then just keeping employees on a reduced salary.  Also, this system is cheaper for the government because unemployment checks would be much larger than the 60% difference they would pay instead.  Essentially, the government and the company have a stake and a vested interest in people being employed, so they both need to share the burden, and share the job.

You can read more about "kurzarbeit" at The Two-Way HERE.

For a comparison in Germany's and the United States' unemployment rates go HERE.

"Is 'Good' News Possible?": A Response to the President's Plan in Afghanistan

Firstly, you must know that since its inception I have been against our nation building strategy in Afghanistan.  I have just never thought that they were a country suitable for an American Presidential democracy.  Instead I have always favored a parliamentary democracy that allows for equal representation from the numerous tribes throughout the country.  I even wrote a paper expressing this view point back when I was in college in my American Government 101 class about seven years ago, and my teacher hated that opinion so much that the low grade he gave me dropped my final grade an entire letter.  Most people seem to think like him.  Currently, most discussions we have concerning this war seem to not understand exactly how disastrous our plan is from the core, and that will only increase the chance of more unfortunate decisions.  However, I am starting to wonder if our Afghanistan endeavor is so misguided that it now has become nearly impossible to make good decisions or have good news.  Have we eradicated all "good" concerning this war?

First lets look at President Obama's plan for continuing this war.  He wants to add 30,000 more troops to the region and he wants to start bringing troops home as soon as 18 months from now.  He acknowledges we will have a small sustained troop presence in the region to help insure stability for many years.  The goals for these troops will be to capture key population areas, and to train competent Afghan Security Forces.  These two factors will facilitate the withdrawal of troops and a transfer of responsibility to the Afghans.  However, once the responsibility has been transfered we need to make sure that President Karzai is no longer given a blank check.  This will only lead to corruption, and we can all see that now.  President Obama intends to monitor the progress of this government to hopefully prevent if from being overrun with corruption.  Additionally, we will need help to accomplish all of this.  We will need support and troops from our allies and the U.N. to create stability, but we must forge a strong partnership with Pakistan.  Much of al Qaeda and the Taliban reside in the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we will need Pakistan's help to ensure that these two groups cannot commit acts of terror.  That is the plan and this should cost an additional $30 billion dollars in 2010, and that would bring the total for the Afghanistan War for the year to roughly $100 billion.  Many define this position as 'hawkish' and similar to that of the Bush era strategy, and they have that opinion because they are right.  The difference is that President Obama is trying to be "Bush Smart" instead of "Bush Regular" a.k.a. "Bush Dumb".

Click to read more ...

"The Decade of Broken Dreams"

Time Magazine has officially declared the first decade of the 21st Century as "The Decade from Hell".  ("The Decade of Broken Dreams" was a contender, but it didn't make it.)  As for the 2000's here is what Time Magazine had to say.

Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era.

We're still weeks away from the end of '09, but it's not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want -- just give thanks that it is nearly over.

Frankly, I find it hard to disagree with them, and doubt I could find a person that feels the 2000's have been better than the 1990's.

Here is the video Time is putting out to promote this issue.  It is of a crying baby while confetti falls to the ground.

The Senate's Health Care Bill and our Legislative Process.

Tonight Senate Majority Leader harry Reid presented his health care bill and this is something to be extremely happy about, yet there is plenty of work to still be done.  The bill Sen. Reid created should cover 94% of Americans, costs $849 billion which achieves the President's goal of the bill being below $900 billion.  Additionally, it should reduce health care costs by over $1 trillion over the decade, will reduce the deficit by by $127 billion over the decade, and $650 billion over the following decade.  (All financial projections have been confirmed through the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office.)

This is all very good.  More Americans will have access to health care, and it appears that the plan should actually save the government money, yet the bill has not passed through the Senate yet.  This is only a start, but a good one.  The bill inevitably will go through some changes before the Senate will pass it, and then it will go to committee where it will get combined with the House's health care bill to make one super bill that both houses approve of.  Then the President can sign it into law.  There is still a lot of work to be done, but it appears as thought we are moving in the right direction.

When I see how Congress works my natural instinct was to get frustrated with how slowly the process can take, but now my frustration is not with the process.  It is with many of its participants.  I remember back when I interned for Congressman Bernie Sanders while in college, and grew frustrated with how slowly everything moved, yet there I also learned why everything proceeded at this arduous pace.  Everything has to be checked, double checked, triple checked, and so on to ensure that everything is perfect when it becomes a law.  This makes sense and is the right way to do things, and that is the process.  The problem often is the participants, many of whom refuse to look at legislation proposed by the opposition based on principle, and allow lobbyists to not only write legislation, but also sneak loopholes into legislation that benefits their interests far more than it does the public.  Actions such as these harm the process, and can even make it meaningless.  What is the point of triple checking legislation only for non-elected officials to make their own adjustments when no one is looking?  What is the point of proposing a bill only for people to ignore it because you are on the other team?  Actions like this are are not only wrong, but they are petty and selfish.  We as citizens need to observe, respect, and understand our law making process to ensure that it works properly.

I mention the importance of the process because it allows events to be put into perspective.  The Senate having a bill to debate is great, and warrants a modest celebration, but sadly much more needs to be achieved for any of this to matter.  Senators need to actually look at it and debate it because that is their job, instead of siding with their particular party since their party, in theory, has little to do with their job.  This bill has been revised numerous times between Sen. Reid's office and the CBO before it was presented yesterday, but new revisions will occur before a final bill leaves the Senate.  Basically, the process of debating and revising needs to occur and this will take time, yet many participants will inevitably try to kill the debate through filibusters and make revisions meaningless by trying to sneak their own amendments into it while no one is looking.  These actions kill time, and destroy the process.

American citizens need to know the difference between good slow and bad slow.  This bill has an extremely tough battle with bad slow ahead of itself, and when good slow prevails that will be a cause for celebration.

For more info on the bill read HERE and HERE.

The New Yorker Interviews Elizabeth Warren (a must watch)

Elizabeth Warren heads the Congressional Oversight Committee for TARP.  TARP stands for Troubled Asset Relief Program, and essentially decides how to deal with bad mortgages and nearly anything related said mortgages in an attempt to avert or minimize the affects of a financial collapse.  In addition to this job she has also proposed the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act which aims to make sure that Americans are not being cheated when they sign up for credit cards, loans, or anything related to credit.  The Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act is currently being debated in Congress.  The essence of this bill revolves around strict transparency and regulations.

To summarize Mrs. Warren says,

 Consumers can enter the market to buy physical products confident that they won't be tricked into buying exploding toasters and other unreasonably dangerous products ... we need ... a new regulatory regime, and even a new regulatory body, to protect consumers who use credit cards, home mortgages, car loans, and a host of other products. The time has come to put scaremongering to rest and to recognize that regulation can often support and advance efficient and more dynamic markets.

Please take the time to watch her interview.