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Congress to Focus on Critical Issues for Holidays
Trend Watchers Resource List
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Secret History of Credit Cards
Great PBS expose' on the dirty business of credit cards. It's difficult to watch this and not come away thinking that bankers are crooks (the ABA lobbyist is a real sleezebag.) One of the big demons is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the US Treasury agency that, in January 2004, declared itself sole regulator of the national banks and insulated them state-based legal action. NY Attorney General Eliott Spitzer thinks that's a really bad idea. But the (former) Comptroller thinks it will be just fine. She couldn't point to any examples where they'd actually taken a large bank to task over anything. But she was very assuring they're on the task. Sort of like the TSA, and FEMA, and the Dept. of Homeland Security - you know, all those federal agencies that do such a fine job of farting around whenever there's an opportunity to do whatever it is they're actually supposed to do.You can watch the whole thing online. It's worth doing. And remember, YOUR Senators voted FOR the banking industry and AGAINST you to revise bankruptcy laws specifically to benefit credit card companies. Don't let them forget.
Terry Frazier at 11:12 PM
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Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Congress to Focus on Critical Issues for Holidays
In the best of all worlds the government would do things that made our lives better. This isn’t actually possible, so the best we can hope for is that they do things that don’t make our lives worse. This is possible, but only rarely and usually about stuff that doesn’t matter. Now that the Republicans have had the run of Congress for a few years, have spent all the money, porked up everything they could find, greased the palms of all their corporate supporters, and generally run out of ideas for f***ing up the domestic situation, they’ve decided to give us a break – today they are holding hearings on the college football Bowl Championship Series. Let’s see, so far this year the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee (which somehow got the idea they were supposed to regulate sports instead of commerce) have held hearings on horse racing jockeys and workers, and now college football. And don’t forget the House Government Reform Committee, which got the idea it should regulate sports instead of government (see a trend here?) and held hearings about steroids in baseball earlier this year.
Before you go off wringing your hands in disappointment remember this – while this group of 58 self-important windbags led by Joe Barton spins their wheels on idiotic sports issues, they are NOT drafting legislation to cripple the internet, stifle your rights, infringe your speech, destroy your privacy, strip-search you at airports, and myriad other things they could be doing in relation to commerce. Whiling away the days in a group circle-jerk about college football is the very best thing they can be doing in the imperfect world in which we live.
So this Holiday Season let’s remember just how important this sort of useless, meaningless, grandstanding really is. If your representative is among the 58 members of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee, please call or write today and thank them for their innattention to things – like energy and commerce – that could really screw up our lives. If your representative isn’t on the committee, or on any committee (what good are they then?), encourage them to start a campaign to study greyhound racing, or NBA parity for women’s basketball, or illegal fertilizer use among professional grounds keepers. Just any damn thing to keep them occupied and away from stuff that only grownups should handle.
Terry Frazier at 11:53 AM
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Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Trend Watchers Resource List
A list of resources for trend watchers, from Gerald Celente, founder and director of the Trends Research Institute. Published at StartupJournal. [via TP Wire Service]Recommended Reading For Trend Spotters
Current events form future trends, says Gerald Celente, founder and director of the Trends Research Institute, which has been tracking business, consumer, social and lifestyle trends since 1980.
[...]
Here is a selection of books Mr. Celente counts among the exceptions, as well as his daily online reads for spotting trends.
The Secrets of Economic Indicators: Hidden Clues to Future Economic Trends and Investment Opportunities by Bernard Baumohl. "Whether you're tracking pop culture, high fashion or health care, all things are connected, and economics is the tie that binds them all."
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John C. Bogle. "Tracking trends is a way of seeing where we are, how we got here and where we're going. And John Bogle's new book does just that."
China, Inc. : How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World by Ted C Fishman.
The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power, and Your Job by Oded Shenkar. "I'm among those who believe that while the 20th century was America's, the 21st will be China's."
The Big Book of Self-Reliant Living: Advice and Information on Just About Everything You Need to Know to Live on Planet Earth by Walter Szykitka (Editor). "One of hottest trends we see is the rapidly growing desire of more people to be self empowered, non-reliant, and 'off the grid.'
Haaretz, Al Jazeera, the Independent and China Online. "These four are our daily must-read news sites."
Drudge Report and the Raw Story. "We log on to these two Internet sites daily because they generally span the ideological spectrum."
Terry Frazier at 12:57 PM
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