Too Much or Too Little Regulation?

According to a piece in today's New York Times, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the industry it was created to regulate are shooting dice with the public's safety and sooner or later they are going to get craps. [Click on this post's title for a link to the article.]

A few days ago I heard on NPR that Vermont Yankee, a nuclear plant that was cited for leaks of radioactive tritium into the soil and groundwater, will probably remain open despite the state legislature's vote not to renew its license. Evidently the NRC's rubber-stamp approval of the license renewal (one day before the earthquake and tsunami caused Japan's nuclear crisis) supercedes state and local action. The matter will probably be decided in the federal courts. (Gee, I wonder how the corporation friendly Roberts' Court will rule if the suit reaches that far.)

The article lists incident after incident in which the industry overruled or bullied the regulatory agency into accepting questionable fixes and untested materials in aging American plants. These plants are OLD. Many of them share design flaws with those currently out of control in Japan. They should be subject to more and stricter oversight now, not less.

In the meantime, our U. S. Congress is targeting the budgets and actual existence of all the regulatory agencies - pulling their teeth so to speak - on the pretense of pursuing a "job friendly" agenda. This is not about producing jobs. It is about serving their corporate constituency. How did that constituency become more powerful and acquire more rights than the citizens in our democracy?And what has it done with that power? It has cheated its shareholders, exported our jobs overseas, polluted our environment, destroyed our economic diversity and is dismantling our middle class.

Corporations are amoral. Corporate decisions are made on a risk/reward basis that considers profit and loss of money, usually with a short-term horizon. Loss of human life or damage to the environment are looked upon as necessary collateral damange. A society that does not regulate corporate entities will be destroyed by them.

When are our national, state and local governments going to recognize this? There are many ticking time bombs out there. Our aging, poorly maintained nuclear power plants are not the least among them.

Now What?

The vicious instigator of mass murder is dead. The architect of 9/11 is no more. Did his passing please me? Yes. Do I feel safer with him gone? Not really.

My country has changed in frightening, confusing ways since September 11, 2001. Its citizenry is polarized in apparently irreconcilable camps. Its economy is lackluster with few signs of revitalization on the horizon.

The Bill of Rights are more observed in their violation than their observance. The middle class is shrinking while fewer and fewer super rich individuals own more and more of the national assets. Regulations that control the most powerful corporations are weakened while regulations that control more and more of the daily lives of individuals are strengthened.

We wage undeclared wars across the middle east. These wars have drained our treasury. Regular Americans who fly on major carriers are subject to intrusive search of their possessions and persons and are treated like cattle by the carriers who transport them. Wealthy Americans fly with relatively small inconvenience on private carriers where they are cosseted and pampered. An activist religious minority legislates its particular "morality" upon the majority and openly rejects the separation of church and state established by our First Amendment.

Yes, I was glad to see the most notorious murderer of our time executed. The very serious problems crippling our society and threatening our children's' futures still exist.

Surprise - Corporations Win Again

While the media focused on preparations for the royal wedding in Great Britain and Donald Frump's birther brouhaha, corporations won a major victory against American citizens yesterday.

The U. S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that corporations can use arbitration clauses to prevent consumers from banding together for class action lawsuits. According to the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-court-class-action-20110428,0,4701430.story) the decision (5-4 along party lines) ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 "trumps state laws and court rulings in California and about half the states that limit arbitration clauses deemed to be "unfair" to consumers."

Soooo, when your telephone company charges questionable fees, I guess you'll just have to grin and bear it. When your employer discriminates against you, even if it is part of corporate policy with widespread effects, if you signed an arbitration clause, you are on your own. The ruling said arbitration clauses must be enforced even if they are unfair.

This ruling comes at a time when conservatives in Congress are working to defund or eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and all regulatory agencies are under the gun.

So much for "government of the people, for the people and by the people."

Because you loved them continued...information your family will need

I begin with the date the information was last updated or compiled, along with legal names and social security numbers.

1: Cash, checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit, money market funds. Include the names of financial institutions, account numbers and amounts.

2. Bonds and Marketable Securities - Non-Retirement: number of shares, description, owner, account number or location of certificates, brokerage account information, recent market value.

3. Retirement Accounts: Break down by type (IRA, Annuity, Pension, 401K), include description, managing institution, recent market value, beneficiaries.

4. Life Insurance Policies: issuing company, owner of policy, beneficiaries, face amount, account number, cash value and death benefit.

5. Real Estate Owned: description (e.g. personal residence, second home, investment property), address, mortgage holder and balance of mortgage or date paid off, current market value.

6. Liabilities - loans owing to banks, brokers, finance companies, credit card companies, others. List the institution or individual owed, date of origination, description, security given for the loan (if any), monthly payment and principle balance.

7. Other Assets: list automobiles, jewelry, furniture, artwork, etc.

8. Important names and addresses - close relatives, attorney, accountant, insurance agents.

9. Location of Important Documents - describe the documents and their locations. If there is a safety deposit box, give its location, number and a detailed list of its contents.

Because you loved them... important records to leave behind

Coping with a loved one's death is traumatic enough without the inevitable scramble for information - Is there a cemetery plot? What kind of service did the departed one want? How do we pay the mortgage/rent/insurance until the estate is settled? Is there a will? What kind of bank and brokerage accounts, life insurance policies, health care policies, annuities are there?

Most of us do not want to discuss these subjects or have difficulty doing so. But, if you love your families, you will do them a big favor if you compile this information and make sure it is available to them. Leaving it all in a safety deposit box can be a problem. If probate is required, it could take weeks, even a month or more to access the box. Not a good place for the cemetery deed, pre-paid funeral arrangements or the only copy of a will.

Many years ago I began compiling my own information into a spreadsheet when I had to complete a loan application and had a difficult time finding all the requested information. Over the years I tweaked it as I realized this was a valuable record if anything happened to me. For security, this spreadsheet is never kept on my hard drive, but always "on disk" stored in a safe place. I have repeatedly reminded my closest family of its existence.

For some, a simple word processing file might work better. I will summarize the records you need in a future blog.

Online Poker

Just about everything we do online entails risk. There are lots and lots of bad guys out there preying upon Internet users. Credit card and bank companies files are repeatedly raided for nefarious purpose. Government agency files are hacked. Brigands, sexual predators, stalkers and extortionists have developed highly sophisticated tools for finding prey.

This does not deter us from using the net from everything from grocery shopping to social networking, from banking and investing to pursuing our favorite hobbies. It has become our preferred source of information and and entertainment.

Until this week, online poker was one of my favorite Internet activities. I knew its legal status was under fire, but believed that sane heads would rule and the issue would be decided in favor of the game. At PokerStars I could enter tournaments for as little as a dime and spend several hours testing my wits and luck against total strangers. I could play a few hands of 7-card Stud, a game now hard to find at the casinos for penny ante players like myself, or 5-card Draw.

Like craps, poker is a game designed for gambling. It is a game of wits, strategy, luck, bluffing and trying to get a "read" on your opponents. Playing for real money and playing free games are two completely different animals. The free games just don't provide the same level of play because the size of the bets does not matter.

Online poker has been proven to be a wonderful training ground for players, many of whom have gone on to win major poker championships (as witnessed on ESPN). Like any other Internet venture the major online poker sites have experienced trouble with hackers and cheats, but the top-rated sites have good reputations for monitoring their security.

Now the FBI has not only shut down the major online Poker sites for U.S. players, it has laid criminal charges on the operators, arrested some of them and has warrants out on many more. The charge? Bank fraud. This is so bogus.

This is Policy?

Every time a major political figure begins a supposedly earth-shaking policy speech, the opening sentence attacks the positions of the opposite side of the political aisle. Double-Speak rules the day. Neither side is serious. Both Democrats and Republicans continue to play to the galleries holding their base constituency while never actually challenging their real base - their corporate sponsors. Until Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, John Boehmer and Nancy Pelosi stand at the podium together and inform the American people that "this is the best solution we could forge together," I will continue to watch their antics with cynicism and disgust.