Felonius Funk Pops IN Unexpectedly

Sixteen Trillion.   The next time you have nothing better to do, go home, get on your computer, and Google "16 trillion".   A provision in the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill called for a partial audit of the Federal Reserve (Ron Paul had been trying to get a full audit for the last thirty years) to determine who got what money during the 2008 derivatives driven banking meltdown.  The numbers are astounding.  They come to sixteen trillion dollars of your money and mine being given away to the global financial oligarchy (I don't know what else to call it that would be accurate).  The only person of interest listed on Google as having an opinion is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.  I quote Bob Dole from 1995, "Where's The Outrage?"  The GAO report is right there in plain sight, and if you scroll down to page 131, you see a list of the tyrants who garnered and probably squandered our money.  Where's the media?  Where's Congress?  What really happened to our sixteen trillion dollars?

Our current government has assured our European counterparts that we would be the "lender of last resort" if push came to shove over its own banking crisis.  Pardon me, but I didn't know we had those kinds of reserves on hand after 2008.   Derivatives play just as big a part in today's problems in Europe as they played in our own back yards in 2007 and current.    I will suggest to you that similar circumstances to what caused Orange County, California to declare bankruptcy in 1994 also caused Jefferson County (Birmingham), Alabama to declare bankruptcy in 2011.  Some things never change:  they just get bigger and more out of control.

Those poor people representing "Occupy 'this' or Occupy 'that'!   The vast majority of them have no idea what they really should be protesting.  The American public also remains affixed to that degree of cluelessness.

It's The Derivatives, Stupid! 

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 JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK IN THE WATER

   (FELONIUS FUNK SHOWS UP)

America sports brokerage and financial planning companies of all shapes and sizes, from the mega bank-owned firm to the tiny independent, almost "mom and pop" boutique.  The lion's share of these people are hard-working, properly licensed, and they make the right ethical decisions every day.  Once in a while a properly licensed rogue will move into a city and set up shop. Ponzi schemes are developed in order to pay off old money with new money after "guranteeing" returns that seem just a little to good to be true.  Sometimes "Promissory Notes" are offered to clients (loans to help keep the business going) with the promise of overly attractive interest rates attached to them.  Eventually complaints to the regulators roll in, all of these businesses collapse, the owners get caught, they go to trial, they get convicted, and they do some jail time. 

What do these predatory businesses have in common?  When the FEDS in the securities industry build their cases, one of the primary charges is the alleged issuance of "Unregistered Securities".    Any new securitiy issued by any member firm has to go through a series of regulatory processes before it can be "cleared" for issuance.  The private issuance of debt and/or equity securities in this vast industry is forbidden.   This country has seen a bunch of rogue investment business owners go to jail, over the last twenty years, for selling unregistered securities and participating in ponzi schemes.

I rarely watch anything in our media that helps glorify Hollywood.  I have not watched the Grammys, Emmys, and Oscars for years.   The point was brought to my attention recently that, during one of those awards ceremonies, someone did stand at the podium and remark that no one from Wall Street had gone to jail over the 2007-08 financial shenanigans.  I applaud this public outcry for justice.  Many of you still may be wondering who, if anyone, really did anything wrong three years ago.

Concluding, I will remind you that there are good derivatives and bad derivatives.  Derivatives like zero coupon bonds, convertible bonds and/or convertible preferred stock, are examples of good derivatives that go through normal regulatory procedures before they can be cleared for issuance and then sold by a number of member firms.  Now let's talk about the bad derivatives.  They are created on paper out of thin air by employees of member firms, often exponentially leveraged, and then are sold to clients around the world without regulatory scrutiny of any kind.  Many of them are off shore and not even shown on the balance sheets of the firms involved.

So.......our small white collar criminals go to jail for the same offenses that the big boys in the banking, investment banking, and insurance industry commit.  The big boys, however, continue to get their "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards renewed and plunder the financial landscape with their own versions of toxic waste.

The bottom line:    The big firms are just as guilty of selling unregistered securities as their smaller counterparts who have been busted and sent to jail.   The leverage used, in fact, makes the big boys much more guilty.

FF

 

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THINK AGENTS ARE CONFUSED TODAY? IMAGINE BEING A FIRST TIME HOME BUYER!

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Great post from Lenn. We all need to nurture trust by our honest actions with others.

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Reputation Architecture: How to multiply the effects of 'Remarkable Service'

Gary W. Oakes, CRS, GRI, ABR, e-PRO

Franklin, TN

More about me…

Crye-Leike Realtors

Address: 206-A Cool Springs Blvd., #101, Franklin, Tn, 37067

Office Phone: (615) 771-6620

Cell Phone: (615) 400-0098

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This will be SO important to one's success in the future. Reputation Architecture will be a keyword one of these days soon, especially in local searches when looking for service-oriented REALTORS.

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THE SUGAR BOWL PREVIEWED BY AN ALCOHOLIC NEW ORLEANS POLICE HORSE - Every Day Should Be Saturday

HE SUGAR BOWL PREVIEWED BY AN ALCOHOLIC NEW ORLEANS POLICE HORSE

by Spencer Hall on Jan 4, 2011 1:01 PM EST

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with Unsilent Majority.

via www.myneworleans.com

ONE

 

These streets.

These filthy, filthy streets.

You come here. You buy your 64 ounce beers, your drinks in three-foot-long neon plastic tubes. You say things you can't say at home. You vent. You spill it into these streets like the outflow pipes of distant sewers. Lives filled with shit you can't dump anywhere else. You put things you wouldn't put in your worst enemy's bathtub here. You make a beast of yourself because you think no one's watching. 

Someone is watching though.

I see it all.

The beast who stays a beast. 

The beast with more humanity than any of you bastards.

 

 

TWO

 

You ask me about your games, your petty little games. You want a game? We can play games. How about "Turning a Corner To Find A Trannie Stabbing A Sexually Intolerant Man From Ohio In The Face With A Broken Margarita Glass?" Or my other recent favorite, "Bitch From Little Rock Who Won't Stop Pulling My Tail." You know what cops hate doing? Filing paperwork. They really hate it.

That's their problem, because when I kick someone in the knee and crack their patella you know how much paperwork I have to do? None, because hooves can't hold a pen. They can make a drunk bitch feel just an ounce of the pain in me, though. I would sign a thousand sheets of paper with a pen clenched in my teeth for that.

There are other games. "Drunk Couple Fights Outside A Strip Club When A Three-Way Lapdance Goes Sour." "Man on PCP Wants To Fight a Horse." (Oh, that is a favorite of mine, and you know who doesn't lose? Me.) There's a little game called "Pantsless Couple Having A Quickie In The Alley Gets Chased By Cops." It's a bright spot in the long dark tunnel of my day to watch a man fall tackle-first into a gutter with his pants around his ankles. 

Sometimes it makes me forget where I am. Then I remember, and the smell of stale booze and piss brings me back to the present, and I remember that dreams are the worst torture of all: the promise of hope interrupted by the inevitable waking.  

 

THREE

 

Other horses don't understand what we go through. Home life? Forget it. No barn can hold you once you've tasted the street or bitten a chunk out of a tourist shoulder in a street fight. You're either on patrol or sitting in a dark dive drinking bourbon neat. The bars aren't supposed to give cops free drinks. The bars know that the law is the lie we tell others to get to the business of living just like we do. 

You can try to have a real relationship. Sure, you can go for a wild ride with one of the ponies from the petting zoo. In the end there's no real connection. The conversation never gets past oats and bloat. Just a roll in the hay, and then a swish of the tail and she's gone like a dream down the sidewalk.  

You might think of her one cold night in the stables. Sometimes in this prison we call life you become your own warden. Sometimes he's the worst warden of all.

 

FOUR

 

 

Yes. I've taken bribes. Carrots. Sugar. I'll be honest, I'm not even a vegetarian anymore. None of us are. It's an open secret. We all take them: a beignet here, a sack of oats there. We walk past some bars and restaurants more than others. Not always for the right reasons, according to some. You show me a solid right reason and I will show you an honest cop.

We'll compare. I like to look at nothing as much as the next horse. It'll be fun for one of us, at least.

It changes you, this city. Changes your blood, whatever is left of your soul. Last week I ate a steak. I'll admit it. Perfect marbling, well-rested, perfectly grilled with some creole butter. A steak. I'm this close to eating my own.

That's what this city does to you.

You start off as a bright eyed pony.

You leave it a swaybacked cannibal.

And the worst part: it was delicious.

 

FIVE

 

It doesn't even have the decency to stay the same. This city's a whore, and it spreads its legs for the future and cuckolds the past every second. Last year they brought in a new crop of recruits. Arabians. Say what you want, but I don't trust 'em.

They're a little funny, if you ask me. My HR rep tells me I gotta stop calling them all Osama. But what does that fucking donkey know about the world? He sits in the barn all day, watching tv and eating the loot he takes off incoming prisoners. I'm out here. I have to know who to trust.

I don't know when it stops. When camels are closing the bars and biting women who aren't in burqa on Jackson Square, you'll see I was right. You'll think of me.

But by then it'll be too late. If I'm lucky I'll be out to stud. If not, I'll be dead.

 

SIX

I've kicked those who deserved it. I've kicked those who don't. They feel the same after a while.

 

SEVEN

 

When i do go off-duty I'm either drunk or working private security. Usually both. I try to stay away from the drugs. Sometimes they don't stay away from me.That's when trouble starts.

You think drugs make it back to the lab?  Have you seen my nostrils? Do you know how much blow a horse can do in two minutes? Do you know how much pain flies out of my body when that white angel flies into my brain? Do you know how for just a second I'm free, running through the meadows I never got to run through as a foal?

Happiness is an empty saddle. An empty saddle is a hollow horse. We're happiest when we're hollow. Nothingness is nothing to fear. It's being that should terrify you.

I don't know how much longer I can do this.

/pisses two gallons on the sidewalk

//shits mid-stride

 

EIGHT

There are moments. One time I woke up in a dumpster with Lindsay Lohan. She was naked, I was unbridled. We were both wild.

You might say bad things about that lady. I dunno, maybe she's been bad to you. PETA won't hear a complaint from me.

 

NINE

 

I had a dream last week. I walked down Bourbon with my rider on my back. He was drunk and sleeping. It was sometime around dawn.  No one was on the streets. Not even a sleeping drunk. There was the sun, and the balconies and railings and romeo spikes and the smell of the streets. Nothing else.

I crossed Elysian Fields and went through the Marigny. I kept walking, first through another neighborhood, then another, and on and on. I don't know how long I walked. The neighborhoods got strange and unfamiliar. I saw no one else. There were streets and silence, and I wandered south to the river. 

Then I came to the river.

A ferry waited. The pilot looked old and out of time. He had suspenders, and highwater pants, and a white cotton shirt and a hat. I had no money. He asked me if I would sell what I had to get on. I nodded yes. He took my bridle, and said "Ten dollars." The saddle: "eighty." The blanket, the rest of my gear: "twenty dollars."  He asked me what else I had.

 I could talk in this dream like a man. This was not strange to me. I said, "My soul."

The old man squinted. He wrote down a number on the paper.

I woke up in the barn, shivering and alone. 

I don't know if I want to know what the number was on that paper.

Also, I have hooves, and can't pick up pieces of paper.

 

TEN

 

So. You play your games, Ohio State and Arkansas. They're just games. I'm out here with a 240 pound bribe sponge with a gun on my back. That's the game I play every day.

That's the real game. What you do is for kids. What I do is about giving a sick order to these streets. The garbage gets in the gutter one way or another. Someone's got to kick it there. There's a glue that holds this city together. 

It's made from horses.  LIfe's predictable like that, but I'm not complaining. It'll be over soon enough.

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This is a few days old, but Spencer is such a gifted writer, I had to share again. Enjoy!!

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