Below is a note from my good friend Steve Welker. It has information on a way to make a donation to a great organization and receive the tax credit:
November 18, 2008
Dear family and friends,
It’s a fact — asking people for money is not easy. In this market, it might even seem downright foolish. But what if we told you that giving to the Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ACBVI) could actually save you money, or better yet, make you money? That’s not foolish at all and it’s an easy decision to make.
Your turn to benefit.
Did you know that when you support ACBVI with your financial contribution, the Arizona Department of Revenue rewards your support with a tax credit? It’s true. The Credit for Contributions to Charities that Provide Assistance to the Working Poor, better known as the Charitable Organization Tax Credit, allows you to take a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on your state return AND a deduction on your Federal return since ACBVI is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
This year, you can take a credit up to $200 if you file as single or head of household, and up to $400 if you’re married and filing jointly.
You can take advantage of this credit if you: file a return in Arizona, itemize your charitable deductions and have deducted charitable contributions at least once since 1996. We encourage you to consult your accountant for details on how this tax credit, and giving to ACBVI, can positively affect your tax return.
In the meantime, if you are moved to donate to ACBVI, please make use of the donation form below. We appreciate your support beyond measure and encourage you to take full advantage of the Charitable Organization Tax Credit.
Sincerely,
Steve Welker
Chairman
ACVBI Board of Directors
To Donate click Here
Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
I found this on FoxNews.com as to why McCain lost
I found this on FoxNews.com as to why McCain lost
I thought this was good constructive feedback:
November 5th, 2008 at 12:56 am
People need to stop blaming the media.
People need to stop blaming money.
Blame John McCain. This was his campaign. He chose his running mate. He chose his campaign advisers. He gave the speeches. He put his name on commercials and ads.
A few points:
-What if McCain had picked Romney (or Pawlenty) instead of Palin? Chances are, with the economy in the state it's in, he would have looked like a genius.
-What if McCain has SHOWED us how he's different from Bush rather than just saying "I'm not Bush." We know he's not Bush-but he didn't paint a clear picture of how he's different (the dem talking point "voted with Bush 90% of the time" didn't help).
-What if McCain had actually run a cleaner campaign, sticking to the issues rather than using scare tactics? What if he had actually been a cordial, respectful opponent to Obama?
-What if McCain had run as…McCain. It's not enough to SAY you're a maverick-he didn't act like one.
Just to name a few…
I think this is going to be the year of "what ifs" for the republican party. They really should have run away with this election. Instead, they panicked, and are now blaming everyone and everything else for losing the election.
In 2012, pick a legitimate candidate (not a candidate who couldn't win the nomination 8 years earlier), run a cleaner campaign, stick to the republican message, and republicans will take back the senate and White House.
I thought this was good constructive feedback:
November 5th, 2008 at 12:56 am
People need to stop blaming the media.
People need to stop blaming money.
Blame John McCain. This was his campaign. He chose his running mate. He chose his campaign advisers. He gave the speeches. He put his name on commercials and ads.
A few points:
-What if McCain had picked Romney (or Pawlenty) instead of Palin? Chances are, with the economy in the state it's in, he would have looked like a genius.
-What if McCain has SHOWED us how he's different from Bush rather than just saying "I'm not Bush." We know he's not Bush-but he didn't paint a clear picture of how he's different (the dem talking point "voted with Bush 90% of the time" didn't help).
-What if McCain had actually run a cleaner campaign, sticking to the issues rather than using scare tactics? What if he had actually been a cordial, respectful opponent to Obama?
-What if McCain had run as…McCain. It's not enough to SAY you're a maverick-he didn't act like one.
Just to name a few…
I think this is going to be the year of "what ifs" for the republican party. They really should have run away with this election. Instead, they panicked, and are now blaming everyone and everything else for losing the election.
In 2012, pick a legitimate candidate (not a candidate who couldn't win the nomination 8 years earlier), run a cleaner campaign, stick to the republican message, and republicans will take back the senate and White House.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Gingrich on Bailout Bust
I would first off like to thank Dan Koestner for bringing this article to my attention. Interesting perspective and solution that does not involve a bail out. I have a link to the actual article. But I have put a summary of his proposed solution.
-Pablo
Gingrich on Bailout Bust: 'I Don't See How the President Can Avoid Firing Secretary of Treasury'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,430429,00.html
Link to the video
Tuesday , September 30, 2008
"....
VAN SUSTEREN: Is Secretary Paulson the right guy to be spearheading this?
GINGRICH: No. I mean, I think that he must have been a terrific deal-maker at Goldman Sachs and a great chairman of Goldman Sachs, but I don't think that's the same job as being a secretary of the Treasury. And I think the president would be much better off if Undersecretary Kimmet was now replacing Secretary Paulson. The administration won't like to hear that, but I think it's true.
One reason is that there's a step they could take tomorrow morning that would dramatically improve things with no congressional action, and that is to change the accounting rules that the Sarbanes-Oxley bill imposed on the system called "mark to market." It's a complicated issue, but I think it's so central to our future, Greta, that every American needs to understand. We adopted an artificial rule which drives down the price of everything in a period when prices are declining. So we artificially make it much worse for companies.
Both Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson have indirectly admitted this when they said that they would pay two or three times the market value for paper because the paper is so dramatically undervalued. Now, that's a sign that it's the core accounting system that's wrong.
Two Chicago economists indicated on Thursday they thought this was 70 percent of the problem. That's $500 billion of the $700 billion that Paulson wants. The European central bank warned in 2004 that this would be a disaster, that you cannot do what we tried to do under Sarbanes-Oxley.
So my challenge to the administration is simple. Suspend tomorrow morning the mark-to-market requirement. Replace it temporarily with a three-year rolling average. You will overnight explode the amount of liquidity on the street. Companies will immediately have relief all across America. It will be a stunning effect. And you will have bought plenty of time to now think through in a better way what was so badly designed by Secretary Paulson and that, frankly, could not be salvaged.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. If this is so simple -- and Secretary Paulson is a man certainly with a long history in the financial system, having been at Goldman Sachs -- if this is so easy to change to this three- year rolling average, which you say will introduce liquidity into the system so quickly, why isn't he doing this? I mean, he doesn't -- he seems like a guy who would know this stuff.
GINGRICH: Well, I think there are at least two major reasons. The first is that Chairman Cox of the Securities and Exchange Commission sees his job as implementing the rigidity of Sarbanes-Oxley, and so he's doing what the Congress said during the last crisis. The fact that it's making it clearly and demonstrably worse doesn't seem to be getting through to him.
In the case of Secretary Paulson, I honestly believe -- and this is obviously grounds for real debate. But my personal belief is that he liked the idea, as a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, that he would get to spend $700 billion and he wanted the power.
Let me give you a single example. They could have come in and asked for a loan authority. They could have said, We will loan money at Treasury plus 2 percent to any firm that has a liquidity problem, but the firm has to work it out and it can't be a bailout. He didn't take that route. He was asked by House Republicans over and over again. He wouldn't take that route. He wanted the authority to go up and buy these assets -- and by the way, to buy them at prices that he arbitrarily set based on his judgment, not at market value.
And so I think that part of this is, if you will, a kind of hubris that was centralizing so much power in the Secretary of the Treasury that I think was very unhealthy for the American system. I was delighted when Senator McCain intervened the other day, and with his help, Congressman Boehner and the House Republicans significantly improved what was a very bad bill. And my fear now is that Speaker Pelosi will move to the left and make the bill dramatically worse by Thursday or Friday.
....GINGRICH: Every time I turn around, somebody says to me, "Let me tell you my horror story." Let me tell you how bad mark to market is because what it does is, it says to a firm, if you have one bad sale, you remark your inventory based on this new market, and that drives your inventory down. And now you've got to go out and borrow the extra money to cover this change in your values. On an upward cycle, it would lead you to overvalue your property. On a downward cycle, it leads you to undervalue your property.
And all you have to -- don't take my word for it. Read the testimony of Bernanke and of Paulson, who both said -- the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the secretary of the Treasury, who both said under oath that they would pay two or three times the current market value because the paper is actually worth dramatically more than its current value.
Now, that tells me what we have here is an accounting problem, which is leading to a liquidity problem. And as a simple test, I would challenge -- Chris Cox is an old friend of mine. I would challenge him tomorrow morning, take the gamble. Suspend it for two weeks and see what happens. If it works beautifully if the markets reliquidify, if we suddenly have dramatically less of a problem, then don't reimpose it. but if it turns out to be a problem, two weeks later, you have the authority to put it back in.
But take the gamble of helping America tomorrow. Don't cut a deal that moves the country into even more corruption and even more big government. You know, the Democrats at one point in this negotiation had a proposal to give left-wing community groups $20 billion as part of the price for passing this. I can't imagine what they're going to try to charge on Thursday.
...the first thing they ought to do tomorrow morning is suspend mark to market, which the administration can do internally without any bill. The second thing they should do is rewrite the bill.
But I would rewrite it to move it towards being a lending authority, not a purchasing authority and to enabling people to have a work-out, not a bailout..."
-Pablo
Gingrich on Bailout Bust: 'I Don't See How the President Can Avoid Firing Secretary of Treasury'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,430429,00.html
Link to the video
Tuesday , September 30, 2008
"....
VAN SUSTEREN: Is Secretary Paulson the right guy to be spearheading this?
GINGRICH: No. I mean, I think that he must have been a terrific deal-maker at Goldman Sachs and a great chairman of Goldman Sachs, but I don't think that's the same job as being a secretary of the Treasury. And I think the president would be much better off if Undersecretary Kimmet was now replacing Secretary Paulson. The administration won't like to hear that, but I think it's true.
One reason is that there's a step they could take tomorrow morning that would dramatically improve things with no congressional action, and that is to change the accounting rules that the Sarbanes-Oxley bill imposed on the system called "mark to market." It's a complicated issue, but I think it's so central to our future, Greta, that every American needs to understand. We adopted an artificial rule which drives down the price of everything in a period when prices are declining. So we artificially make it much worse for companies.
Both Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson have indirectly admitted this when they said that they would pay two or three times the market value for paper because the paper is so dramatically undervalued. Now, that's a sign that it's the core accounting system that's wrong.
Two Chicago economists indicated on Thursday they thought this was 70 percent of the problem. That's $500 billion of the $700 billion that Paulson wants. The European central bank warned in 2004 that this would be a disaster, that you cannot do what we tried to do under Sarbanes-Oxley.
So my challenge to the administration is simple. Suspend tomorrow morning the mark-to-market requirement. Replace it temporarily with a three-year rolling average. You will overnight explode the amount of liquidity on the street. Companies will immediately have relief all across America. It will be a stunning effect. And you will have bought plenty of time to now think through in a better way what was so badly designed by Secretary Paulson and that, frankly, could not be salvaged.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. If this is so simple -- and Secretary Paulson is a man certainly with a long history in the financial system, having been at Goldman Sachs -- if this is so easy to change to this three- year rolling average, which you say will introduce liquidity into the system so quickly, why isn't he doing this? I mean, he doesn't -- he seems like a guy who would know this stuff.
GINGRICH: Well, I think there are at least two major reasons. The first is that Chairman Cox of the Securities and Exchange Commission sees his job as implementing the rigidity of Sarbanes-Oxley, and so he's doing what the Congress said during the last crisis. The fact that it's making it clearly and demonstrably worse doesn't seem to be getting through to him.
In the case of Secretary Paulson, I honestly believe -- and this is obviously grounds for real debate. But my personal belief is that he liked the idea, as a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, that he would get to spend $700 billion and he wanted the power.
Let me give you a single example. They could have come in and asked for a loan authority. They could have said, We will loan money at Treasury plus 2 percent to any firm that has a liquidity problem, but the firm has to work it out and it can't be a bailout. He didn't take that route. He was asked by House Republicans over and over again. He wouldn't take that route. He wanted the authority to go up and buy these assets -- and by the way, to buy them at prices that he arbitrarily set based on his judgment, not at market value.
And so I think that part of this is, if you will, a kind of hubris that was centralizing so much power in the Secretary of the Treasury that I think was very unhealthy for the American system. I was delighted when Senator McCain intervened the other day, and with his help, Congressman Boehner and the House Republicans significantly improved what was a very bad bill. And my fear now is that Speaker Pelosi will move to the left and make the bill dramatically worse by Thursday or Friday.
....GINGRICH: Every time I turn around, somebody says to me, "Let me tell you my horror story." Let me tell you how bad mark to market is because what it does is, it says to a firm, if you have one bad sale, you remark your inventory based on this new market, and that drives your inventory down. And now you've got to go out and borrow the extra money to cover this change in your values. On an upward cycle, it would lead you to overvalue your property. On a downward cycle, it leads you to undervalue your property.
And all you have to -- don't take my word for it. Read the testimony of Bernanke and of Paulson, who both said -- the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the secretary of the Treasury, who both said under oath that they would pay two or three times the current market value because the paper is actually worth dramatically more than its current value.
Now, that tells me what we have here is an accounting problem, which is leading to a liquidity problem. And as a simple test, I would challenge -- Chris Cox is an old friend of mine. I would challenge him tomorrow morning, take the gamble. Suspend it for two weeks and see what happens. If it works beautifully if the markets reliquidify, if we suddenly have dramatically less of a problem, then don't reimpose it. but if it turns out to be a problem, two weeks later, you have the authority to put it back in.
But take the gamble of helping America tomorrow. Don't cut a deal that moves the country into even more corruption and even more big government. You know, the Democrats at one point in this negotiation had a proposal to give left-wing community groups $20 billion as part of the price for passing this. I can't imagine what they're going to try to charge on Thursday.
...the first thing they ought to do tomorrow morning is suspend mark to market, which the administration can do internally without any bill. The second thing they should do is rewrite the bill.
But I would rewrite it to move it towards being a lending authority, not a purchasing authority and to enabling people to have a work-out, not a bailout..."
Who Caused the Economic Crisis?
Who Caused the Economic Crisis?
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/print_who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html
October 1, 2008
MoveOn.org blames McCain advisers. He blames Obama and Democrats in Congress. Both are wrong.
Summary
A MoveOn.org Political Action ad plays the partisan blame game with the economic crisis, charging that John McCain’s friend and former economic adviser Phil Gramm “stripped safeguards that would have protected us.” The claim is bogus. Gramm’s legislation had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton. Moreover, the bill had nothing to do with causing the crisis, and economists – not to mention President Clinton – praise it for having softened the crisis.
A McCain-Palin ad, in turn, blames Democrats for the mess. The ad says that the crisis “didn’t have to happen,” because legislation McCain cosponsored would have tightened regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, the ad says, Obama "was notably silent" while Democrats killed the bill. That’s oversimplified. Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time, did not bring the bill forward for a vote. And it’s unclear how much the legislation would have helped, as McCain signed on just two months before the housing bubble popped.
In fact, there’s ample blame to go around. Experts have cited everyone from home buyers to Wall Street, mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan.
Analysis
As Congress wrestled with a $700 billion rescue for Wall Street's financial crisis, partisans on both sides got busy – pointing fingers. MoveOn.org Political Action on Sept. 25 released a 60-second TV ad called "My Friends’ Mess," blaming Sen. John McCain and Republican allies who supported banking deregulation. The McCain-Palin campaign released its own 30-second TV spot Sept. 30, saying "Obama was notably silent" while Democrats blocked reforms leaving taxpayers "on the hook for billions." Both ads were to run nationally.
And both ads are far wide of the mark.
MoveOn.org Ad:
"My Friends' Mess"
Narrator: We all know the economy is in crisis, but who's responsible?
McCain: My friends. My friends. My friends.
Narrator: John McCain's friend Phil Gramm wrote the bill that deregulated the banking industry, and stripped the safeguards that would have protected us.
McCain asked Gramm to help write his economic plan.
John McCain's friend Rick Davis lobbied for Fannie and Freddie for years, "defending" them against stricter regulation. And now? He runs McCain's presidential campaign.
And John McCain himself? He's stood by "deregulation" time and time again.
McCain: I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy.
Narrator: And now that the markets are in meltdown? John McCain's friend George Bush wants hardworking Americans to write the biggest blank check in history, bailing out the Wall Street firms and the Washington lobbyists who got us into this mess. Main Street giving Wall Street $700 billion and getting nothing in return? It's outrageous.
Americans shouldn't have to foot the bill for mistakes that John McCain and his friends made.
Narrator: MoveOn.org Political Action is responsible for the content of this advertisement.
Blame the Republicans!
The MoveOn.org Political Action ad blames a banking deregulation bill sponsored by former Sen. Phil Gramm, a friend and one-time adviser to McCain's campaign. It claims the bill "stripped safeguards that would have protected us."
That claim is bunk. When we contacted MoveOn.org spokesman Trevor Fitzgibbons to ask just what "safeguards" the ad was talking about, he came up with not one single example. The only support offered for the ad's claim is one line in one newspaper article that reported the bill "is now being blamed" for the crisis, without saying who is doing the blaming or on what grounds.
The bill in question is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was passed in 1999 and repealed portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, a piece of legislation from the era of the Great Depression that imposed a number of regulations on financial institutions. It's true that Gramm authored the act, but what became law was a widely accepted bipartisan compromise. The measure passed the House 362 - 57, with 155 Democrats voting for the bill. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 90 - 8. Among the Democrats voting for the bill: Obama's running mate, Joe Biden. The bill was signed into law by President Clinton, a Democrat. If this bill really had "stripped the safeguards that would have protected us," then both parties share the blame, not just "John McCain's friend."
The truth is, however, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act had little if anything to do with the current crisis. In fact, economists on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been.
Last year the liberal writer Robert Kuttner, in a piece in The American Prospect, argued that "this old-fashioned panic is a child of deregulation." But even he didn't lay the blame primarily on Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Instead, he described "serial bouts of financial deregulation" going back to the 1970s. And he laid blame on policies of the Federal Reserve Board under Alan Greenspan, saying "the Fed has become the chief enabler of a dangerously speculative economy."
What Gramm-Leach-Bliley did was to allow commercial banks to get into investment banking. Commercial banks are the type that accept deposits and make loans such as mortgages; investment banks accept money for investment into stocks and commodities. In 1998, regulators had allowed Citicorp, a commercial bank, to acquire Traveler's Group, an insurance company that was partly involved in investment banking, to form Citigroup. That was seen as a signal that Glass-Steagall was a dead letter as a practical matter, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley made its repeal formal. But it had little to do with mortgages.
Actually, deregulated banks were not the major culprits in the current debacle. Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase have weathered the financial crisis in reasonably good shape, while Bear Stearns collapsed and Lehman Brothers has entered bankruptcy, to name but two of the investment banks which had remained independent despite the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Observers as diverse as former Clinton Treasury official and current Berkeley economist Brad DeLong and George Mason University's Tyler Cowen, a libertarian, have praised Gramm-Leach-Bliley has having softened the crisis. The deregulation allowed Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase to acquire Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. And Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have now converted themselves into unified banks to better ride out the storm. That idea is also endorsed by former President Clinton himself, who, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo published in the Sept. 24 issue of Business Week, said he had no regrets about signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall:
Bill Clinton (Sept. 24): Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. ...You know, Phil Gramm and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the Republicans]. This wasn't something they forced me into.
No, Blame the Democrats!
McCain-Palin 2008 Ad: "Rein"
Narrator: John McCain fought to rein in Fannie and Freddie.
The Post says: McCain "pushed for stronger regulation"..."while Mr. Obama was notably silent."
But, Democrats blocked the reforms.
Loans soared. Then, the bubble burst. And, taxpayers are on the hook for billions.
Bill Clinton knows who is responsible.
Clinton: I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Narrator: You're right, Mr. President. It didn't have to happen.
McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
The McCain-Palin campaign fired back with an ad laying blame on Democrats and Obama. Titled "Rein," it highlights McCain's 2006 attempt to "rein in Fannie and Freddie." The ad accurately quotes the Washington Post as saying "Washington failed to rein in" the two government-sponsored entities, the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac"), both of which ran into trouble by underwriting too many risky home mortgages to buyers who have been unable to repay them. The ad then blames Democrats for blocking McCain's reforms. As evidence, it even offers a snippet of an interview in which former President Clinton agrees that "the responsibility that the Democrats have" might lie in resisting his own efforts to "tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." We're then told that the crisis "didn't have to happen."
It's true that key Democrats opposed the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which would have established a single, independent regulatory body with jurisdiction over Fannie and Freddie – a move that the Government Accountability Office had recommended in a 2004 report. Current House Banking Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts opposed legislation to reorganize oversight in 2000 (when Clinton was still president), 2003 and 2004, saying of the 2000 legislation that concern about Fannie and Freddie was "overblown." Just last summer, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd called a Bush proposal for an independent agency to regulate the two entities "ill-advised."
But saying that Democrats killed the 2005 bill "while Mr. Obama was notably silent" oversimplifies things considerably. The bill made it out of committee in the Senate but was never brought up for consideration. At that time, Republicans had a majority in the Senate and controlled the agenda. Democrats never got the chance to vote against it or to mount a filibuster to block it.
By the time McCain signed on to the legislation, it was too late to prevent the crisis anyway. McCain added his name on May 25, 2006, when the housing bubble had already nearly peaked. Standard & Poor's Case-Schiller Home Price Index, which measures residential housing prices in 20 metropolitan regions and then constructs a composite index for the entire United States, shows that housing prices began falling in July 2006, barely two months later.
The Real Deal
So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.
–by Joe Miller and Brooks Jackson
Sources
Benston, George J. The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Glass-Steagall Act Revisited and Reconsidered. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Tabarrok, Alexander. "The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Morgans vs. The Rockefellers." The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 1:1 (1998), pp. 1 - 18.
Kuttner, Robert. "The Bubble Economy." The American Prospect, 24 September 2007.
"The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999." U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Accessed 29 September 2008.
Bartiromo, Maria. "Bill Clinton on the Banking Crisis, McCain and Hillary." Business Week, 24 September 2008.
Standard and Poor's. "Case-Schiller Home Price History." Accessed 30 September 2008.
"Understanding the Tax Reform Debate: Background, Criteria and Questions." Government Accountability Office. September 2005.
Bianco, Katalina M. "The Subprime Lending Crisis: Causes and Effects of the Mortgage Meltdown." CCH. Accessed 29 September 2008.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/print_who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html
October 1, 2008
MoveOn.org blames McCain advisers. He blames Obama and Democrats in Congress. Both are wrong.
Summary
A MoveOn.org Political Action ad plays the partisan blame game with the economic crisis, charging that John McCain’s friend and former economic adviser Phil Gramm “stripped safeguards that would have protected us.” The claim is bogus. Gramm’s legislation had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton. Moreover, the bill had nothing to do with causing the crisis, and economists – not to mention President Clinton – praise it for having softened the crisis.
A McCain-Palin ad, in turn, blames Democrats for the mess. The ad says that the crisis “didn’t have to happen,” because legislation McCain cosponsored would have tightened regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, the ad says, Obama "was notably silent" while Democrats killed the bill. That’s oversimplified. Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time, did not bring the bill forward for a vote. And it’s unclear how much the legislation would have helped, as McCain signed on just two months before the housing bubble popped.
In fact, there’s ample blame to go around. Experts have cited everyone from home buyers to Wall Street, mortgage brokers to Alan Greenspan.
Analysis
As Congress wrestled with a $700 billion rescue for Wall Street's financial crisis, partisans on both sides got busy – pointing fingers. MoveOn.org Political Action on Sept. 25 released a 60-second TV ad called "My Friends’ Mess," blaming Sen. John McCain and Republican allies who supported banking deregulation. The McCain-Palin campaign released its own 30-second TV spot Sept. 30, saying "Obama was notably silent" while Democrats blocked reforms leaving taxpayers "on the hook for billions." Both ads were to run nationally.
And both ads are far wide of the mark.
MoveOn.org Ad:
"My Friends' Mess"
Narrator: We all know the economy is in crisis, but who's responsible?
McCain: My friends. My friends. My friends.
Narrator: John McCain's friend Phil Gramm wrote the bill that deregulated the banking industry, and stripped the safeguards that would have protected us.
McCain asked Gramm to help write his economic plan.
John McCain's friend Rick Davis lobbied for Fannie and Freddie for years, "defending" them against stricter regulation. And now? He runs McCain's presidential campaign.
And John McCain himself? He's stood by "deregulation" time and time again.
McCain: I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy.
Narrator: And now that the markets are in meltdown? John McCain's friend George Bush wants hardworking Americans to write the biggest blank check in history, bailing out the Wall Street firms and the Washington lobbyists who got us into this mess. Main Street giving Wall Street $700 billion and getting nothing in return? It's outrageous.
Americans shouldn't have to foot the bill for mistakes that John McCain and his friends made.
Narrator: MoveOn.org Political Action is responsible for the content of this advertisement.
Blame the Republicans!
The MoveOn.org Political Action ad blames a banking deregulation bill sponsored by former Sen. Phil Gramm, a friend and one-time adviser to McCain's campaign. It claims the bill "stripped safeguards that would have protected us."
That claim is bunk. When we contacted MoveOn.org spokesman Trevor Fitzgibbons to ask just what "safeguards" the ad was talking about, he came up with not one single example. The only support offered for the ad's claim is one line in one newspaper article that reported the bill "is now being blamed" for the crisis, without saying who is doing the blaming or on what grounds.
The bill in question is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was passed in 1999 and repealed portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, a piece of legislation from the era of the Great Depression that imposed a number of regulations on financial institutions. It's true that Gramm authored the act, but what became law was a widely accepted bipartisan compromise. The measure passed the House 362 - 57, with 155 Democrats voting for the bill. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 90 - 8. Among the Democrats voting for the bill: Obama's running mate, Joe Biden. The bill was signed into law by President Clinton, a Democrat. If this bill really had "stripped the safeguards that would have protected us," then both parties share the blame, not just "John McCain's friend."
The truth is, however, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act had little if anything to do with the current crisis. In fact, economists on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been.
Last year the liberal writer Robert Kuttner, in a piece in The American Prospect, argued that "this old-fashioned panic is a child of deregulation." But even he didn't lay the blame primarily on Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Instead, he described "serial bouts of financial deregulation" going back to the 1970s. And he laid blame on policies of the Federal Reserve Board under Alan Greenspan, saying "the Fed has become the chief enabler of a dangerously speculative economy."
What Gramm-Leach-Bliley did was to allow commercial banks to get into investment banking. Commercial banks are the type that accept deposits and make loans such as mortgages; investment banks accept money for investment into stocks and commodities. In 1998, regulators had allowed Citicorp, a commercial bank, to acquire Traveler's Group, an insurance company that was partly involved in investment banking, to form Citigroup. That was seen as a signal that Glass-Steagall was a dead letter as a practical matter, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley made its repeal formal. But it had little to do with mortgages.
Actually, deregulated banks were not the major culprits in the current debacle. Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase have weathered the financial crisis in reasonably good shape, while Bear Stearns collapsed and Lehman Brothers has entered bankruptcy, to name but two of the investment banks which had remained independent despite the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Observers as diverse as former Clinton Treasury official and current Berkeley economist Brad DeLong and George Mason University's Tyler Cowen, a libertarian, have praised Gramm-Leach-Bliley has having softened the crisis. The deregulation allowed Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase to acquire Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. And Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have now converted themselves into unified banks to better ride out the storm. That idea is also endorsed by former President Clinton himself, who, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo published in the Sept. 24 issue of Business Week, said he had no regrets about signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall:
Bill Clinton (Sept. 24): Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. ...You know, Phil Gramm and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the Republicans]. This wasn't something they forced me into.
No, Blame the Democrats!
McCain-Palin 2008 Ad: "Rein"
Narrator: John McCain fought to rein in Fannie and Freddie.
The Post says: McCain "pushed for stronger regulation"..."while Mr. Obama was notably silent."
But, Democrats blocked the reforms.
Loans soared. Then, the bubble burst. And, taxpayers are on the hook for billions.
Bill Clinton knows who is responsible.
Clinton: I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Narrator: You're right, Mr. President. It didn't have to happen.
McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
The McCain-Palin campaign fired back with an ad laying blame on Democrats and Obama. Titled "Rein," it highlights McCain's 2006 attempt to "rein in Fannie and Freddie." The ad accurately quotes the Washington Post as saying "Washington failed to rein in" the two government-sponsored entities, the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac"), both of which ran into trouble by underwriting too many risky home mortgages to buyers who have been unable to repay them. The ad then blames Democrats for blocking McCain's reforms. As evidence, it even offers a snippet of an interview in which former President Clinton agrees that "the responsibility that the Democrats have" might lie in resisting his own efforts to "tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." We're then told that the crisis "didn't have to happen."
It's true that key Democrats opposed the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which would have established a single, independent regulatory body with jurisdiction over Fannie and Freddie – a move that the Government Accountability Office had recommended in a 2004 report. Current House Banking Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts opposed legislation to reorganize oversight in 2000 (when Clinton was still president), 2003 and 2004, saying of the 2000 legislation that concern about Fannie and Freddie was "overblown." Just last summer, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd called a Bush proposal for an independent agency to regulate the two entities "ill-advised."
But saying that Democrats killed the 2005 bill "while Mr. Obama was notably silent" oversimplifies things considerably. The bill made it out of committee in the Senate but was never brought up for consideration. At that time, Republicans had a majority in the Senate and controlled the agenda. Democrats never got the chance to vote against it or to mount a filibuster to block it.
By the time McCain signed on to the legislation, it was too late to prevent the crisis anyway. McCain added his name on May 25, 2006, when the housing bubble had already nearly peaked. Standard & Poor's Case-Schiller Home Price Index, which measures residential housing prices in 20 metropolitan regions and then constructs a composite index for the entire United States, shows that housing prices began falling in July 2006, barely two months later.
The Real Deal
So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.
–by Joe Miller and Brooks Jackson
Sources
Benston, George J. The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Glass-Steagall Act Revisited and Reconsidered. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Tabarrok, Alexander. "The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Morgans vs. The Rockefellers." The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 1:1 (1998), pp. 1 - 18.
Kuttner, Robert. "The Bubble Economy." The American Prospect, 24 September 2007.
"The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999." U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Accessed 29 September 2008.
Bartiromo, Maria. "Bill Clinton on the Banking Crisis, McCain and Hillary." Business Week, 24 September 2008.
Standard and Poor's. "Case-Schiller Home Price History." Accessed 30 September 2008.
"Understanding the Tax Reform Debate: Background, Criteria and Questions." Government Accountability Office. September 2005.
Bianco, Katalina M. "The Subprime Lending Crisis: Causes and Effects of the Mortgage Meltdown." CCH. Accessed 29 September 2008.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Alcantera 2008 Harvesting Festival
September 27, 2008 - 2008 Harvesting Festival - 11:00 am - 7:00 pm
- Entrance: $10.00 per person
- With Tasting: $15.00 per person
- Children under 14 get free admission
Entertainment - Food & Wine - Farmer’s Market - Activities
Caterer: Recovery Room
Featuring: Exhibits on Sustaining and Building Green
Also Featuring Poster Artist John Bowler & ‘Smokin’ Joe
For more Information please call: 928.649.8463
http://www.alcantaravineyard.com/page10.html
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Commentary: Bailouts will lead to rough economic ride
By Ron Paul
Special to CNN
Rep. Ron Paul says the government's solution to the crisis is the same as the cause of it -- too much government.
(CNN) -- Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot.
For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.
Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention.
Ever since the 1930s, the federal government has involved itself deeply in housing policy and developed numerous programs to encourage homebuilding and homeownership.
Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government.
Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.
These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.
When interest rates are lowered to below what the market rate would normally be, as the Federal Reserve has done numerous times throughout this decade, it becomes much cheaper to borrow money. Longer-term and more capital-intensive projects, projects that would be unprofitable at a high interest rate, suddenly become profitable.
Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand.
In this case, this manifested itself in overbuilding in real estate. When builders realize they have overbuilt and have too many houses to sell, too many apartments to rent, or too much commercial real estate to lease, they seek to recoup as much of their money as possible, even if it means lowering prices drastically.
This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners -- in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers -- builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.
The government doesn't like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated. This was why the Great Depression was as long and drawn out in this country as it was.
I am afraid that policymakers today have not learned the lesson that prices must adjust to economic reality. The bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the purchase of AIG, and the latest multi-hundred billion dollar Treasury scheme all have one thing in common: They seek to prevent the liquidation of bad debt and worthless assets at market prices, and instead try to prop up those markets and keep those assets trading at prices far in excess of what any buyer would be willing to pay.
Additionally, the government's actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.
Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.
The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.
It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.
The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.
Until the big-government apologists realize the error of their ways, and until vocal free-market advocates act in a manner which buttresses their rhetoric, I am afraid we are headed for a rough ride.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
Special to CNN
Rep. Ron Paul says the government's solution to the crisis is the same as the cause of it -- too much government.
(CNN) -- Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot.
For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.
Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention.
Ever since the 1930s, the federal government has involved itself deeply in housing policy and developed numerous programs to encourage homebuilding and homeownership.
Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government.
Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.
These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.
When interest rates are lowered to below what the market rate would normally be, as the Federal Reserve has done numerous times throughout this decade, it becomes much cheaper to borrow money. Longer-term and more capital-intensive projects, projects that would be unprofitable at a high interest rate, suddenly become profitable.
Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand.
In this case, this manifested itself in overbuilding in real estate. When builders realize they have overbuilt and have too many houses to sell, too many apartments to rent, or too much commercial real estate to lease, they seek to recoup as much of their money as possible, even if it means lowering prices drastically.
This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners -- in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers -- builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.
The government doesn't like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated. This was why the Great Depression was as long and drawn out in this country as it was.
I am afraid that policymakers today have not learned the lesson that prices must adjust to economic reality. The bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the purchase of AIG, and the latest multi-hundred billion dollar Treasury scheme all have one thing in common: They seek to prevent the liquidation of bad debt and worthless assets at market prices, and instead try to prop up those markets and keep those assets trading at prices far in excess of what any buyer would be willing to pay.
Additionally, the government's actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.
Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.
The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.
It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.
The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.
Until the big-government apologists realize the error of their ways, and until vocal free-market advocates act in a manner which buttresses their rhetoric, I am afraid we are headed for a rough ride.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Wine and Art Scholarship Fundraiser
Hi Everyone,
As some of you may know, I am on the board for a nonprofit organization, the Phoenix Chapter of the National Society of Hispanic MBA's (NSHMBA). We are hosting our very first Scholarship Fundraiser. It is being held on Friday October 24th at the Zelma Basha Salmeri Gallery in Chandler, AZ. This Gallery showcases one of the largest collections of Indian and Western Art in Arizona.
All proceeds raised from the tickets sold will go to the NSHMBA Scholarship Fund and will specifically go to recipients attending MBA programs in Arizona.
Tickets are $35, and includes dinner and dessert catered by A.J.'s Fine Foods, as well as wine, beer, and soft drinks.
We have to sell tickets in advance to provide the Bashas' Corporation with a headcount for the food and drinks. So we are asking everyone to buy their tickets in the next few weeks. Only 200 tickets will be available.
For more information and to buy tickets, go to http://phoenix.nshmba.org/calendar.asp?id=4081
If you are unable to attend, but want to donate to the NSHMBA Scholarship Fund there is an option on the link to do this as well.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Pablo
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Your Money: McCain vs. Obama
See where the presidential candidates stand on the major economic issues.
Click below to read this article that goes issue by issue.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0806/gallery.election_issues/index.html
Click below to read this article that goes issue by issue.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0806/gallery.election_issues/index.html
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Career Readiness Program: Getting the most from your next career fair. Jobsearch tips for the MBA and the MBA to be.
Do you feel ready for the NSHMBA conference? Have you ever wondered how some conference attendees seem much at ease and even land jobs right at the conference? Your Phoenix chapter will be hosting a mini-workshop for professionals and aspiring MBA's that will prepare you to get the most of the upcoming conference (or any other career-focused conference that you may be planning to attend.) Come and learn strategies to maximize your time at the career expo where you will encounter over 200 recruiters and Fortune 500 companies seeking for talent. Attend the conference prepared to make your next career move!
Additionally, the mini-workshop will feature experts from Jobing.com in a discussion on the latest trends for the local MBA job market.
Come prepared to polish your resume with a resume critique session from local and national recruiting experts.
Not an MBA yet? ...Come to learn about preparing for the GMAT during an exclusive GMAT exam information session provided by experts from the Princeton Review.
All of these will be part of our evening this Wednesday August 20, 2008...you're invited!
RSVP at http://phoenix.nshmba.org/calendar.asp?id=4240
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
LOCAL GETAWAYS: ALTERNATIVE TO RISING TRAVEL PRICES
LOCAL GETAWAYS: ALTERNATIVE TO RISING TRAVEL PRICES
Wine-drinkers Find Comprehensive Tours Available at Home
PHOENIX, A.Z., Aug. 12 -- Gas prices, economic uncertainty, and even reduced airline amenities are causing many to reconsider the usual travel getaways. Arizona businesses are recognizing the need to offer alternatives. With wine sales in the U.S. at an all time high and the rise in quality of Arizona wines, family owned Arizona Grape Escapes (AGE) was inspired to begin providing a new wine tour based out of Phoenix."We've fallen in love with Arizona wines and want to share them. It's just that simple, we're winos!" says Colleen 'Chase' Dalrymple, an owner of the new tour company. According to the Arizona Wine Growers Association, this state boasts 35 vineyards and 28 bonded wineries. Chase explains, "Wine is often associated with California, France, and Italy. But it doesn't require world travel; we can think globally and drink locally." This philosophy is not limited to the wine itself. According to Local First Arizona, a non-profit organization, 45 cents of every dollar spent through a local business stays in-state, versus only 13 cents when spent at a national chain. "It's also fascinating to consider the potential reduction on our ecological footprint just by supporting local businesses… imagining the emissions caused by shipping products is certainly a downside to the global marketplace" says Tina Gibson, co-owner of AGE. With this in mind, the lunches served on the wine tours are made fresh by Bertha's Café in Phoenix. AGE also helped sponsor Locavore 3 at Tapino Kitchen & Wine Bar, a five-course dinner and wine-pairing event created entirely from Arizona produce. The new wine tours travel from Phoenix to four wineries in the Verde Valley area: Page Springs Cellars, Oak Creek Vineyards, Javelina Leap, and Alcantara. The daytrips accommodate up to ten attendees, with roundtrip transportation, lunch, tastings, and education included. Wine enthusiasts and novices alike can request an individual seat or reserve the custom bus, dubbed the "WINOBAGO", for a private group tour at ArizonaGrapeEscapes.com.
I.O.U.S.A.
What is it? The film is a documentry on the state of the US, massive debt and the impending melt down (in the spirit of Super Size me and Sicko).
When/Where? National release scheduled August 21st
For screening details and the official trailer CLICK HERE
So What?
Check out the Chatter
New York Times: 1 Billion Dollars Spent to Restore Fiscal Sanity
Bloomberg.com: Blackstone's Peterson Backs Film on U.S. Debt Through Nonprofit
Washington Post: Indebted Ever After
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Alcantera Vineyards near Jerome/Cottonwood
Below is info on one of my favorite Northern Arizona Vineyards. Just ask for Barbara and tell her Pablo sent you.
Welcome to Arizona Wine Country! Until recently all the talk about wineries in Arizona has been about the Southern part of the state, but the new buzz is in Northern Arizona!
Alcantara Vineyards, the first winery on the Verde River is one of the largest wineries in Central and Northern Arizona. Make it a day trip from the Phoenix or Scottsdale area. Check our Arizona winery tours and tasting with an outstanding selection of wines, made right here in Arizona. Visit us and see what its all about.
Our vineyards have over 13,000 vines and offers 12 different varietal's. Come and try our red and white wines, that will transform your taste buds into the relaxing world of wine tasting. Enjoy our surroundings which include the Verde River running around our property, with bald eagles flying overhead. Feel free to bring a picnic basket to enjoy our outside balcony and grass area.
Our high country vineyards, near Sedona Arizona are flourishing and make the perfect getaway when you are looking to enjoy Arizona wines in a spectacular setting. Just two hours from Phoenix area and one of the best wineries near Sedona Arizona, Cottonwood and Jerome, as well as convenient to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon. Alcantara harvests wine in August and September, an event visitors are invited to watch...and don't forget you can now buy Arizona wines online
There are big plans in the works for Alcantara Vineyards, we will be breaking ground on our new Tuscan Village this year. It will feature a new winery tasting room, Bed and Breakfast Inn, a bistro, shops and artisans. We expect these additions to be completed in about two and a half years and fully operating by 2010.
Arizona Wine Country Tours Available.
The Arizona Grape Escapes (AGE), providing the ultimate Arizona wine experience. At AGE, we are a family-owned business with a passion for wine and a love of our Arizona home. In our exploration of the two, we have found unique treasures created from the vines and talented winemakers that have chosen to reside in this beautiful desert landscape. We are on a misson to share these wines with people and bring people to the wine.
For reservations and info go to http://www.arizonagrapeescapes.com/
For reservations and info go to http://www.arizonagrapeescapes.com/
Copies of Frank Carbajal's Book "Building the Latino Future" available for sale.
We have 12 copies of Frank Carbajal's book Builidng the Latino Future: Success Stories for the Next Generation available for sale. Copies of this book are available for the NSHMBA price of $15 (On Amazon, this book is available for $16.47 + $3.99 for shipping = $20.46).
Email Pablo Rodriguez at evp@phoenix.nshmba.org if interested in purchasing a book.
Below is the book review that was published in the June 2008 newsletter.
Building the Latino Future: Success Stories for the Next Generation by Frank Carbajal and Humberto Medina is a collection of inspiring stories of profound Hispanic figures sharing their experiences of overcoming early on challenges to become leaders in their respected professions. Throughout the success stories are common threads containing elements of six key principles: focus, unity, tenacity, unique ability, resilience, and education. Each chapter takes an aspect of these elements and applies them to the life story of such figures as New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Actor/Activist Edward James Olmos, Founder and CEO of Consore Media Alicia Morga, amongst others. One common theme in many of these stories is the humble upbringings and strong values instilled by the parents of many of these first generation Latino Americans. The story of Martin R. Curiel, Vice President of Marketing for Denali Advisors, LLC. is inspiring as he shares the story of his father driving him to college as a semidiesel collided with their vehicle killing his father. He made the promise to his father, "Father, I will never let you down, I will succeed in college." Curiel earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from California Polytechnic Unviersity and an MBA from Havard School of Business.
Building the Latino Future will inspire readers, whether they are Latino or not, to face challenges, beat the odd, and give you the tools necessary to achieve greatness. Carbajal and Medina do an excellent job of teaching strategies and beliefs utilizing the success stories to make any reader feel empowered.
Email Pablo Rodriguez at evp@phoenix.nshmba.org if interested in purchasing a book.
Below is the book review that was published in the June 2008 newsletter.
Building the Latino Future: Success Stories for the Next Generation by Frank Carbajal and Humberto Medina is a collection of inspiring stories of profound Hispanic figures sharing their experiences of overcoming early on challenges to become leaders in their respected professions. Throughout the success stories are common threads containing elements of six key principles: focus, unity, tenacity, unique ability, resilience, and education. Each chapter takes an aspect of these elements and applies them to the life story of such figures as New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Actor/Activist Edward James Olmos, Founder and CEO of Consore Media Alicia Morga, amongst others. One common theme in many of these stories is the humble upbringings and strong values instilled by the parents of many of these first generation Latino Americans. The story of Martin R. Curiel, Vice President of Marketing for Denali Advisors, LLC. is inspiring as he shares the story of his father driving him to college as a semidiesel collided with their vehicle killing his father. He made the promise to his father, "Father, I will never let you down, I will succeed in college." Curiel earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from California Polytechnic Unviersity and an MBA from Havard School of Business.
Building the Latino Future will inspire readers, whether they are Latino or not, to face challenges, beat the odd, and give you the tools necessary to achieve greatness. Carbajal and Medina do an excellent job of teaching strategies and beliefs utilizing the success stories to make any reader feel empowered.
Career Readiness Program: Getting the most from your next career fair. Jobsearch tips for the MBA and the MBA to be.
Career Readiness Program: Getting the most from your next career fair. Jobsearch tips for the MBA and the MBA to be.
Career Readiness Program: Getting the most from your next career fair. Jobsearch tips for the MBA and the MBA to be.
Tempe AZ 85281
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Place: Princeton Review offices
21 E. 6th St. # 125
Tempe AZ 85281
Tempe AZ 85281
Event: Join NSHMBA and the Princeton Review to prepare for your next career fair, job interview, GMAT testing and business school application process.
This workshop will prepare you to work the floor at a large career fair such as the one taking place during the annual NSHMBA conference where over 8,000 MBAs and MBA students seeking jobs and internships visit the booths of over 100 national and international companies seeking for talent. You will learn how to prepare a strategy to maximize your time and land the most interviews, your next job or internship.
Specialized career coach will be conducting resume critiques.
GMAT and graduate school information session will be presented by the Princeton Review.
Cost: $0 members, $10 non-members
Contact: Al Chavez at education@phoenix.nshmba.org
RSVP at http://phoenix.nshmba.org/calendar.asp?id=4240
Career Readiness Program: Getting the most from your next career fair. Jobsearch tips for the MBA and the MBA to be.
Tempe AZ 85281
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Place: Princeton Review offices
21 E. 6th St. # 125
Tempe AZ 85281
Tempe AZ 85281
Event: Join NSHMBA and the Princeton Review to prepare for your next career fair, job interview, GMAT testing and business school application process.
This workshop will prepare you to work the floor at a large career fair such as the one taking place during the annual NSHMBA conference where over 8,000 MBAs and MBA students seeking jobs and internships visit the booths of over 100 national and international companies seeking for talent. You will learn how to prepare a strategy to maximize your time and land the most interviews, your next job or internship.
Specialized career coach will be conducting resume critiques.
GMAT and graduate school information session will be presented by the Princeton Review.
Cost: $0 members, $10 non-members
Contact: Al Chavez at education@phoenix.nshmba.org
RSVP at http://phoenix.nshmba.org/calendar.asp?id=4240
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