Damon Runyon: He Could Spot A Shell Game.

Damon Runyon was an American writer and newspaper reporter from early in the last century, and made his name writing about the criminals and mobsters of his day.

"I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against."

He moved to New York City in 1910, and began hanging around with the criminals and low-lifes on Broadway, getting to know the local crews and gathering colorful material for his writing. The characters and stories later were published in a series of books, made into movies and theatre productions such as "Guys and Dolls."

In the 1920s, the country was riveted by a murder case covered by the newspapers in lurid detail, known as the Snyder/Gray Murders. Runyon covered these murders and the trials. Years later, the basic story of the Snyder/Gray Murders became the basis of "Double Indemnity" (book by James M. Cain; film by Billy Wilder in 1944). Basically, the wife and her boyfriend murdered the husband by poisoning him, choking, and beating him to death. Here's how Runyon described the two killers:

"A chilly-looking blonde with frosty eyes and one of those marble you-bet-you-will chins, and an inert, scare-drunk fellow that you couldn't miss among any hundred men as a dead set-up for a blonde, or the shell game, or maybe a gold brick - on trial for what might be called for want of a better name: the Dumb-bell Murder. It was so dumb!"


If Damon Runyon was here today, he'd call today's Treasury Department proposal to buy up the toxic assets from the banks for what it is: a shell game in which the citizens are always the losers.

Here's the deal: the banks knowingly made bad loans, loans they knew were likely never to be repaid. They tried to doctor their records to hide the fact that these were bad loans, because as quickly as they could, they bundled the loans and sold them in huge packages to Wall Street businesses which, in turn, sold fractional interests of the bundles to blind, greedy, and stupid investors. The idea was to have gotten rid of all the loans before the system crashed. But they did not succeed, and therefore, they are stuck with lots of bad loans.

Let's say Citizen wants to buy a home, but finds housing has gone up by 300%. Citizen only takes home $1600/month in her paycheck, but wants to buy a condo for $250,000. Lender makes the loan with 100% financing. Special gimmicks are used to keep the payments down to $2100, but that's still $500 more than the total income of the citizen.

Citizen defaults. It's just a question of when.

In the meantime, the housing bubble bursts so the condo is now only worth $150,000.

If the bank forecloses, generally they just take back the condo. They can't get anything more from the citizen/buyer.

So if the bank forecloses, they now have a situation in which they loaned $250,000, did not get repaid, and instead received a piece of property only worth $150,000. If they sell the foreclosed property, they receive $150,000, and take the loss of $100,000. Which is how it should be.

Why? Well, they made the bad loan, and either they did it on purpose figuring they would sell the loan so they didn't care if it defaulted. Or they were incompetent. In either event, they should take the loss. But you know what? When you make a loan to someone that will require $2100/month in payments, but the borrower only takes home $1600/month in total, that's not incompetence by the lender. That's intentional fraud. The lenders made bad loans on purpose, planning to bundle them, sell them off quickly to the ignorant, and get their money out up front.

Another reason the lenders should take the loss is that the price of housing should be allowed to drop back down to a fair number, which in this scenario is about $150,000. Once housing falls, more people will be able to buy houses. As long as the bubble is propped up, nobody can afford to buy a home. Let's say the taxpayers buy up that house and try to sell it to someone for $250,000, stabilize the market so the other condos in the area can continue to be listed for sale at $250,000. But, no one will buy at those prices. Just because the taxpayers are stupid enough to come in and pay $250,000 for one condo does not mean that normal buyers will follow suit. Not if they know the condos in the neighborhood are really only worth $150,000. So the properties will be un-sellable. They will simply sit there, listed, but never sold.

Eventually (studies have shown) enough properties sit there long enough, everybody panics, and everybody will drop their asking prices radically, maybe to below fair market value. So that just means by propping up the real estate market now, we are simply putting off for another day yet another huge drop in that market.

What the Treasury Department is proposing to do (which cheered Wall Street so much that the Dow jumped 500 points today) is to buy up the bad loans on defaulted properties from the banks. Using mostly taxpayer money, with a tiny little bit of money from the same criminals that have stolen all the money to begin with: offshore, secret, private equity hedge funds. The government's idea is that they will go into a "partnership" with the same people who robbed us blind.

Ask Naomi Klein about this. See what she thinks. I think that these private secret equity hedge funds which are holding money off-shore, mostly money that was stolen from the rest of us, have just been waiting to come back in and buy everything up. And when they do, they will have even more control over our country that they already do. They will buy up all the excess housing, for example, and sell it back to us in 10 years, or rent it out now for grossly inflated prices.

For the citizens and taxpayers, what's our upside? Apparently if the "toxic assets" sell for a profit, the private equity funds keep all that. So the citizens are underwriting the continued speculation in the real estate market, taking over the losses of the banks, and getting nothing in return. It just doesn't make any sense at all. A shell-game. Tim the Tainted is trying to sell us swamp land.

Paul Krugman Is Just So Darned Cute. And Smart, Too.

It's kind of strange how popular tastes change over the years, the decades.

Frank Sinatra made girls "swoon" back in the 1940s. Elvis made girls faint in the 1950s, and the Beatles made girls and boys weep with love and adulation in the 1960s.

Of course we've also always had that bad-boy thing. Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Robert Mitchum in anything at all. Johnny Depp, Sean Penn -- that slightly dangerous, slightly bad boy that draws the eyes of all the girls.

But never before in our history have so many of us, men and women, developed almost obsessive crushes on -- economists. For heaven's sake, these are the males who dressed with pocket protectors and carried slide rules in first grade. They weren't chosen last to be on the baseball team -- they weren't chosen at all. They may have been nerdy or geeks, but they didn't even take the computer-billionaire off-ramp. Passed that one right by. Probably had their nose buried in some book or another.

Yet here we are, in the 21st century, a nation in despair, and who do we look to for salvation? Not Superman. Not the white-haired well-dressed silver-tongued politicians who have broken our hearts by selling out for bribes. Not the business leaders who, as it turns out, have looted our country, stolen Grandma's wallet and dad's car, forged a deed and even sold the family home, left us all unemployed, hungry, penniless. So who do we turn to?

Economists. The unlikeliest heros.

I can't read any article anymore that doesn't include a reference to Paul Krugman, and the most recent brilliant thing he's said. He's on all the TV shows. I swear I expect him to be doing a guest appearance on Gossip Girl any week now. And to show up on Dancing With The Stars -- he probably does a mean Tango. The man is just too smart, too accomplished, and too cute for words.

There's one photo montage I keep seeing on-line that shows Paul Krugman and George Clooney right next to each other. Hint hint: Paul's just as good looking as George Clooney. But I think that was put together by the President of the Sioux City Chapter of the Paul Krugman fan clubs, and they're all pretty fanatic Klugmanites in Sioux City. But decide for yourself:

Here's a link to his blog, and through there to articles and books. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ Here's another link to his New York Times articles and his impressive credentials. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html

Here's a link to Democracy Now, Amy Goodman interviewing Paul Krugman about the Treasury's plan to pay $1.0 Trillion of taxpayer's money to buy garbage assets from the Wall Street Criminals. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/23/the_zombie_ideas_have_won_paul

President Obama: are you listening? We like Paul Krugman. We want you to choose him and get rid of the Wall Street insiders who have been running things. (You know -- the same people who stole the money in the first place).

You know how the banks put exploding purple ink inside the bundles of money, so when the bank robbers open up the bundle they get purple ink all over them? I sometimes think that all these people, the insiders, must be wearing heavy pancake make-up to cover up the purple ink all over their faces and hands.

Let's bring in someone who is not so much a Wall Street Insider. Like Paul Krugman. Are you listening, President Obama?

See? Don't they look good together?


You always get the feeling that Paul Krugman is actually trying to help the country. Isn't that what we want? And strangely, I do not agree with him on all the issues. But he just seems like he's using his abilities to try to provide the best analysis he can. As opposed to so many of the insiders who lie all the time, and only promote ideas that they think will make them richer.

I guess it's the difference between someone trying to serve their country, and someone trying to rob it blind. It's kind of sad that there are so few public figures anymore who, like Mr. Krugman, honestly seem to be using their best efforts to serve the country, advance its interests, instead of just trying to line their own pockets. This is kind of like one of those disaster films: the ship is about to sink, building to burn down, airplane to explode, and the frantic citizens desperately turn to one man to rescue them: THE ECONOMIST! I don't know what the costume will look like, but I'll bet the story would be a real nail-biter.

President Obama: you should choose Mr. Krugman now. Bring him in as your official advisor. Do it soon, just like so many of us have been politely, so far, asking you to do. Do it now, before the Paul Krugman National Fan Clubs have their rally in August. I'm concerned that if you have not recruited Paul Krugman to join your team by then, those fans could get really ugly.

Pearl Fryar's Garden.

When factory-worker Pearl Fryar and his wife moved to Bishopville, South Carolina, over twenty years ago, they looked at homes in a certain neighborhood, but were told that nobody would sell a home in that area to a black person. The reason given was that the white people figured that black people would not keep their yards up properly. And the local (white) ladies in Bishopville were very concerned with yards. They even had a garden club which toured their small city regularly, and every month gave out a plaque for "Yard of the Month," which the winner got to display in their yard for the whole month.

(Pearl Fryar's "yard" in Bishopville, South Carolina)

So Pearl Fryar and his family bought a home in another neighborhood where black people were allowed to live. He decided that he was going to make his yard look so good that the local women's garden club would have to award him and his family with the "Yard Of The Month" plaque. And he did win that award. But that was just the beginning.

Years later, he said: "There's always gonna be obstacles. The thing is, you don't let those obstacles determine where you go."

Today Pearl Fryar and his family live in the same small town of Bishopville, where they own 3 acres covered with 400 plants which he has carved and shaped into an artistic and gardening wonderland open to the public. His work draws busloads of people to the tiny town of Bishopville, and has earned him a national following not just for his gardening, but also for his wisdom about life.

Pearl Fryar, close to 70, is retired from his job at a local can factory, and he spends most of his time working on his topiaries. Some of his projects can take years to complete.

His yard has been "adopted" by The Garden Conservancy, an organization dedicated to preserving gardens.

When the owner of a small local restaurant in Bishopville named the Waffle House told Pearl Fryar how much she liked his work, and asked him if he could do something with the little tiny spot of land in front of her restaurant, he said absolutely. And he did. In exchange, the restaurant owner offered Pearl Fryar and his wife free breakfast for life.

Pearl Fryar has been written about in national newspapers including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. He also is the subject of a charming documentary film called "A Man Named Pearl."

From the Los Angeles Times, 7/24/08, review of the film "A Man Named Pearl":

"The film explores the passion and philosophy of tree sculptor Pearl Fryar. Born to a sharecropper and retired from the Bishopville, S.C., can factory where he worked for 36 years, Fryar rescues trees from the compost heap of his neighborhood nursery and nurtures them in his garden. "

"Armed with an electric hedge clipper, he goes to work, often at night with the help of a spotlight, a rickety ladder and a jury-rigged lift. He can invest years into perfecting an arch, a spiral, a box atop a sphere or a cone atop a box. Some trees take on the shapes of fish skeletons; others are fantasy forms from Fryar's imagination."

"The artist's foray into topiary began in the 1980s, when Fryar and his wife looked for a new home. One neighborhood spurned them, fearing that an African American couple wouldn't keep up their yard. In response, Fryar set his sights on being the first black recipient of the local garden club's Yard of the Month award.With no training in art or horticulture, Fryar followed an instinct that soon became a passion. Today he carves more than 3 acres of amazing topiaries, attracting other artists, gardeners and national media."

"'It may seem that a man who does topiary is an unlikely superhero, but Pearl is a hero to people in his town and people who come to visit him,' said Brent Pierson, who produced and directed the film with Scott Galloway. 'His message about how to tend your garden and tend your life is touching people.'"
http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-pearl24-2008jul24,0,3463056.story

(Picture of Pearl Fryar, standing in front of some of his work, and one of his garden sculptures entitled "Pot Head.")

The documentary movie about Pearl Fryar is named "A Man Named Pearl." It was an audience favorite as well as winning several awards. Here's a link to the movie website for more information: http://www.amannamedpearl.com/

See also, Washington Post article on Pearl Fryar and his gardens: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR2007081000790.html

Happy Birthday Mr. Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 31, 1685, 324 years ago. His birthday will be celebrated this week by performances of his music in cities around the world. Deservedly so.

Here is "Air" from Suite No. 3 in D major.

Never Ever Ever Say "Special Olympics" Without Kneeling, Bowing Your Head, and Doing The Sign Of The Cross.

I'm sorry, I don't buy it. This whole nonsensical uproar we've heard in the last two days because Obama made a joke that his bowling is so bad, it maybe belongs in the Special Olympics.

And OH MY GOD. You'd have thought he'd murdered a million people, like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did.

And OH MY GOD. You'd have thought he'd just looted and bankrupted the entire country, raped, pillaged, decimated our economy and left our people broke, homeless, unemployed, desperate, in despair, like the Wall Street Criminals and the Financial Cartels have done.

And OH MY GOD. You'd think he'd done nothing but peddle his cute little ass for the past 8 years like every single person in Congress does, sashaying around with their cheap perfume and easy ways, standing on streetcorners and yelling out at CEOs who pass by: "Hey Sailor, Want To Have A Good Time?" Then taking the money, sticking it up their secret accounts, going back to Congress and voting to betray the citizens and the public again and again and again, without remorse. You'd think he was like those criminals and whores who unfortunately are "Our" Senators and "Our" Representatives.

And OH MY GOD. You'd think he'd casually threatened, for political advantage, to annihilate and obliterate another country, an unpopular one, like Hillary Clinton did.

And when someone read the "Newspaper" to Sarah Palin, and she heard President Obama had used the term "special olympics," she immediately figured he must be talking about her, so she got all up in arms about that, insisting that anyone who is in the Special Olympics is the most important person in the entire country. Oh, give it a rest lady.

It's not the Olympics. These people will never be in the Olympics. It's more like Little League. If Obama had said it looked like he was in Little League, would we have heard this nonsense? Of course not.

People got all up in arms because they like to pretend that we are such a compassionate and sensitive nation, that we cherish, protect, care for every retarded and disabled person in the country. But of course that's just silly. For the most part, once their parents die, if they are unable to care for themselves, they'll end up in some dirty institution, tied to a bed, hidden away from polite society because people always demonstrate and protest when anyone wants to build "housing" for "special needs" people in their neighborhood. No, must put those "special" people in the ghetto. And the citizens also cheer when the politicians slash the budget for public assistance. "Get a job," they scream at the disabled and incompetent. Sure, we're as compassionate as an executioner.

We, as a nation, do not care for anyone. Sink or swim. Steal, lie, cheat, deceive, betray. Murder.

One million Iraqis murdered.

Four million Iraqis forced out of their homes, out of their country, refugees in a hostile world.

30% of black American men unemployed, and nobody gives a shit. Maybe they're not "special" enough for the Republicans.

Millions of Americans thrown out of work by American businesses which are sending their jobs to Asia to be done by child and slave labor. And nobody cares. Maybe unemployed Americans aren't "special" enough.

Millions of Americans' retirement and savings stolen by Wall Street, yet all we hear from Republicans is a strident defense of the right of those criminals to receive their multi-million dollar bonuses. I'm going to guess there's a kick-back involved to the politicians. With their perfumed little asses peddled all over Wall Street for a buck.

Don't tell me that the churches help, because it's not enough. Don't tell me some individual put a dime into a bucket at Christmas because it's not enough. Don't tell me about a thousand points of light, because you can't eat light.

Our country, since the Reagan era, with the full-throttled support of Bill Clinton, and through Bush the Moron, has completely disassembled the entire social-safety network that used to exist to help and protect and provide care for "special" Americans along with the rest of us. We are not compassionate, and we do not care. Sarah Palin doesn't care about anything except money and her own ambition. She carried that kid around the campaign trail like a sack of potatoes, so please, cut the crap.

"Special" or not, when the cameras move on, and the hysteria dies down, most Americans will be left to fall, starve, die in the gutter without one bit of assistance from any Republican. And not too much from any Democrat either.

That's why we need "Change."

We Need A Progressive Media Alliance And Trust.

We need a progressive media alliance and trust.

Why do progressives tell working people that they must have a union, they must organize and act together as a group because when they're on their own, they have no power? Yet the progressive media is largely separated and acting as individuals, and seem confused why they have no power on their own. The answer is the same thing: we need to get organized.

For example, we need progressive radio, yet it has been relatively unsuccessful apparently following the traditional model of relying mostly on advertising. But we need people like Peter Werbe, Mike Malloy (who's trying to go it on his own for now), Randi Rhodes, and I'm sure many others. As for blogs and investigate research, there is common dreams, truthout, Danny Schechter's group, truthdig, the Nation, Z magazine. I would say the members should be people or groups who did not have traditional sources of funding, or don't have enough to keep going.

There should be a progressive media trust fund. A board which consists of progressives from the community level as well as maybe a couple of well-known names. Members of the progressive media alliance would be established at the beginning with a certain number of magazines, radio, blogs, movie makers, documentary filmmakers, maybe book writers. Each member would be required to devote time to public fundraising activities (like Habitat) and would be entitled to receive a share from the trust fund. For example, they could go speak at a local group, but the funds raised would go into the trust. New members would be considered as additional funding became available.

Who gets how much would be determined by some formula. For example, depending on the funds raised in a six-month period, each member could receive some percentage of their operating expenses. Each member would have to submit a CPA-audited expense and income statement for their media, verified, to support their receipt of funds.

Local chapters would be formed and hold monthly get-togethers which could be something as simple as a discussion group with a $5 fee per meeting (read some article from the Nation, discuss), could be cultural such as poetry, readings of new writing, could be music, could be food, drink, and half the profit would go to the local chapter, half to the national trust fund. People would have to find local places to use, but with the economic downturn places like churches might rent their halls out cheap. Or community centers can be used. Or meet in a pizza place, or at somebody's home, or in a park in the afternoon. The local groups would serve two purposes: (1) organize locally to develop local forums for progressive voices as well as just something to do with other progressives, and (2) commit to funding progressive media which is in danger of being destroyed.

I also think we could get Move-On to set up a move-on progressive media group. They could raise millions with one e-mail, if we did it right. I would suggest one written statement to be carried by everyone on their own web-page, then announcements sent out to all your e-mail lists asking people to set up a local chapter, and schedule a date for the first meeting, with people to report back on the ideas they generated, or decisions they made.

The activities for a local group could be something as simple as this: a few meetings a year will be a book group, read some progressive book and discuss, meet at someone's home; a few meetings a year will be a movie group, go see some progressive movie or watch a DVD in someone's home; a few meetings would be more current and topical, meeting in a pizza place or in a park to discuss bigger issues like "the Wars." Then hopefully some public outreach also, at least 2-3 times a year, such as find local music groups or artists who are progressives, and work with them to set up a public function, or bring in some local speaker such as a progressive from a local college or university.

We could even try to get some groups like DFA, for example, to participate. Or any of the many progressive groups that have sprung up in recent years. There could be a swap: the Progressive Media Alliance members would donate advertising space or time to the progressive groups to help them, and the progressive groups would encourage their members to join or set up a local chapter of the Progressive Media Alliance.

I see the trust fund as a non-profit, so there would be some administrative responsibility. The money would have to be held in a trust account with a big institutional bank, requiring multiple signatures for withdrawal etc.

If Rupert Murdoch and a few similar creeps end up owning all the media, there will be no progressive thought because it will be extinguished; no progressive books because no one will buy or publish them; no progressive radio, TV. Soon they'll take control of the internet and charge so much for websites that progressives will be eradicated from on-line too. Then politicians will be barred from even advertising on the media during campaigns unless they sing the Nazi hymn and extol the virtues of Murdoch, O'Really, and the fat guy on the radio.

Everyone is excited and hopeful about Obama being our president, but I see the right re-organizing, re-grouping, beginning their counter-assaults. And remember, they've already stolen most of the money from this country, which they've got parked in secret private equity funds off-shore, just waiting to swoop back in and buy up everything. They will buy up our homes for cents on the dollar and sell them back to us in 10 years. I think they're poised for the final attack. We need to get ready to fight back.

Natasha Richardson (1963 - 2009)

Natasha Richardson, a member of the famed acting Redgrave family, died yesterday at the age of 45 after a head injury sustained while skiing. She is survived by her husband, noted Irish actor Liam Neeson, and their two children, and her mother the amazing Vanessa Redgrave.

Her father, Tony Richardson, noted director and producer, predeceased her.

Natasha Richardson was both a stage and movie actress, winning a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance as Sally Bowles in "Cabaret."