This is about the typhoon Yolanda that struck the Philippines at Tacloban, Leyte, where my parents-in-law live. Fortunately, they have a very sturdy reinforced concrete house that is several stories tall and were able to weather the storm comparatively well …
Category: Law
For those of you who think $13 billion is a lot of money
Nobody Should Shed a Tear for JP Morgan Chase
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/nobody-should-shed-a-tear-for-jp-morgan-chase-20131025
Everyone (well, of those tiny number that actually knows this has been in the works) talks about the magnitude of the ‘fine’, but no one is going to jail and …
Equality for few and justice for none
Why Robert Reich Cares so Passionately about Economic Inequality
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/10/why-robert-reich-cares-so-passionately-about-economic-inequality.html
An interesting interview about our current failure to foster any sort of efforts toward remedying income inequality. According to the interviewee, we have had periods in the past where inequality …
Low crime tax
6 shocking revelations about how private prisons make money
Private prison companies are striking deals that guarantee high prison occupancy rates
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/23/6_shocking_revelations_about_how_private_prisons_make_money_partner/
I have talked about the prison industrial complex a time or twain before so this won’t be news …
Student Loan Debacle
Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal
The federal government has made it easier than ever to borrow money for higher education – saddling a generation with crushing debts and inflating a bubble that could bring down the economy
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young-america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815…
Ain’t it great?
Tax reform proposals to be secret for 50 years
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/25/pf/taxes/tax-reform/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Taking a page from the Obama (“our rationale for killing US citizens has to remain secret so the terrorists can’t take advantage of it”) playbook now the Senate is going …
Lets make it even easier for people to get fleeced!
SEC lifts ban on hedge fund ads
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/10/hedge-fund-ads/2505463/
There appeared to be a brief period where, after costing the US economy at least $22 trillion dollars and probably no less than twice that in the global economy, where some regulation …
Yet another Constitutional Amendment that will go nowhere
Keep states’ hands off your right to vote
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/10/opinion/pocan-voting-rights/index.html?hpt=hp_t4
In the list of things-that-ain’t-gonna-happen this has to rank near the top. Our government only agrees on two things: reducing privacy and giving massive taxpayer handouts to millionaires and billionaires. Other …
Sausage making
The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis
It’s long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-last-mystery-of-the-financial-crisis-20130619
In this case, the …
A SCOTUS decision I can fully agree with
U.S. top court bars patents on human genes unless synthetic
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-usa-court-genes-idUSBRE95C0PW20130613
It has always stuck in my craw that the simple act of sequencing a gene could possibly be considered ‘novel, useful and non-obvious’, yet we have (had) thousands of …