Feudalism by any other name...

So, it seems the bloodsuckers at UEFA/FIFA have met their match in this soulless cunt, who is looking to blow up football as we know it by bringing to existence the long-threatened European superleague to finally run the European Cup competition, currently doing business as the misnomered Champions League*, out of business once and for all.

Feudalism by any other name...despite the stated nationality of the bloke at the head of the table, Bokolis' inner circle of friends considers him a middleman/facilitator, and puts the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of the American ownership regimes of EPL teams.

As it is, with the proposed league saying that the squad can't play domestically and its players could be precluded from playing int'l, this has the potential to bite them in their ass.

Most of the relevant players would have no problem choosing riches of the superleague over country, but what happens when they are no longer good enough to play for the new G-20 and the lord kicks them off the land? Like a deposed nobleman, they'll be thrown in with riff raff, and still(?) banned from playing int'l.

The fans might be the bigger issue. We've hung in with the CL through all perversions because we still manage to hold some silly romantic connection to the European Cup. This new league would be like rewriting the Constitution, to which we have no allegiance, and not (self-)required to support. For Bokolis' part, I have been slowly extracting myself from football these past few years. My head is still lodged up its ass, but the rest of me is out.

The P in EPL has always, to some degree, stood for Plastic. The chief purpose of rebranding was to capture the national/int'l TV market- the so-called 'plastic fans' who who don't live near the grounds and don't go to the matches. Of course, television now makes up the bulk of the big clubs' revenue; spectators are just there to help with the TV ambience.

Similarly, the TV revenue in play here renders those local fans to being a bunch of local peasants, like someone living in a bungalow next to a high-rise who won't sell to the developers.

Surely, the new bloodsuckers would buy off UEFA/FIFA for its blessing. The EPL and the FAs are not Bokolis' hero- just a more tolerable lot of bastards. They are all cut from the same cloth.

The fans' only recourse is to disavow the clubs. Only the English fans are capable of this. Bokolis would count Gary Neville among them. While G.Neville the filthy manc cunt is to be reviled, I very much like the way G.Neville the analyst shakes. He is just about as quick to slam his own club for its misdeeds as he is any other, and praise a club he dreads just as quickly as he would his own, which are about the best things you can say about an analyst. He rightfully shreds MUFC and LFC in the same breath.

Have you ever noticed the difference between who gets the championship trophy in football (the captain) and who gets it in American sports (the owner)? As part of the greater culture, as Bokolis pointed out to his circle, you see a big difference right there between Britain, hardly as left-leaning as much of western Europe, and America. In America, where corporations seemingly have more rights than humans, and the free speech granted to a corporation and its money extends to the right to tell you to STFU- with the threat, implicit or explicit, to throw you off its land- when your view clashes with its own, a man with an opinion like this wouldn't even get three minutes to voice it on corporate media, let alone an uninterrupted three minutes.

Bokolis remembers reading- maybe 10-15 years ago, an article about the growing American ownership of clubs in the EPL and how they were already lobbying to scrap relegation. Someone was cited as saying it will never happen because they need 2/3 of the votes, and then the league has to also agree, which it would never do. I thought, just you wait, pal.

It's this kind of nonsense that America is seeking to bring to old world Europe, only it has stormed the beaches of England this time.

Goodell to the last drop?

It seems the media has gotten its panties in a twist over the NFL's drop in viewership.  Bokolis doesn't have the numbers to share with you so we can jerk ourselves off to period-over-period comparisons.  Those numbers are probably all bullshit anyway.  As they say in the corporate world, garbage in, garbage out.  Slightly more seriously, it's not like we can definitively assign a portion of any decline to each cause.

With regard to the numbers, the finger pointing is towards Sunday and Monday night, where there is a significant reduction in the numbers, most of all on Monday night, which is generally attributed to cord-cutting (and NOT Gruden).  Allegedly, the traditional time slots are holding steady.  This relative strength may be distracting the NFL from reflecting, isn't Sunday-day supposed to be growing?

The discussion as to why is mainly about Kaepernick and the election.  That's what surveys are yielding, but there may be some bias at work, where people are responding with both what they think the asker wants to hear and what they think the issue is.  They've lost a few people objecting to how much smack my bitch up is going on.  Whatevs, it's never only one reason; at best, these are tipping points, not causes.

Bokolis would add that our Sundays are no longer sacrosanct.  Once upon a time, the typical family structure was such that a man could bunker up on Sunday and his old lady- and everyone else- knew to leave him the fuck alone.  That is no longer the case; there's always shit going on.  If you think I'm bullshitting, think about how many times your friends, in advance of sending an actual invitation, send you a save the date! message...even they know they're competing for your Sunday.

It doesn't help that there is too much of the product.  Even in the intact nuclear family, it's tough to ask for Thursday night, 10-12 hours of Sunday, then Monday night, especially when your budding narcissists are clamoring for attention and for you to take them here and there.

Even for those free of such obligations, by Sunday/Monday night, anyone who isn't invested in the outcome is done with it.  We've seen this in the football where they actually kick the ball; not content with virtually every week having mid-week fixtures, they are now in the process of regularly impinging on our Mondays and Fridays.

The profiles are of the viewers are different- football fans are closer to fanatics; NFL fans have more who watch because they think that's what they're supposed to be doing.  By nightfall, there is other programming that they think they are supposed to be watching.  If they don't believe Bokolis, then they should do some kind of digging to find how many unique viewers come aboard for Sunday night and how many drop off.  While they're at it, they might want to look into how many of its Sunday-day viewers had already been watching the European matches, as this may be contributing to the weariness.

Bokolis is astounded that none of the discussion involves the product.  The root cause is the product.  The NFL would be foolish to think otherwise, and to think that much of this issue isn't its own doing.  So, I'm'a tell you what the fuck is gomes on.  The following is longhand for, Goodell is a cunt.

• There has been too much change from what we used to know as football...the game is now rugby for fairies.  This is how you lose the older audience, as they lose connection with the game they knew in their youth.  The NFL and NBA might be changing with the times but, while they corrupt their product they are trading demographics.  Contrast it with MLB, whose statistics are sacred and which is essentially the same game it has been since the live-ball era/spitter was outlawed, plus or minus the tightness of the stitching of the balls.  Its fans are aging, and the younger crowd finds the game boring.
• Proving that it's lose-lose, you can't please everyone, and some other platitudes, people are avoiding the NFL because, even in its pussy-whipped state, they still see the game as barbaric.
• There is too much shit besides the game being pushed on us by the NFL, like its cause of the week, those god-awful bright jerseys and American flags the size of the field.  I'll bet y'all didn't know that the reason they came up with flag laws in the first place was to prevent the flag from being used for commercial purposes.
• There is too much talk from the ex-jock- or worse, Gruden- analyst/color commentator.  Leaving aside that what I think about the analytical abilities of a guy who largely had to do exactly as he was told for his whole career, let the game breathe.  If I have to suffer through an analyst, at least get someone on there who was largely thinking for himself on the field, who had a rationale for doing things that wasn't drilled into him by the coach...and don't give me that coach, either.
• There are too many commercials, the content of which indicates what they think of our intelligence.
• There are too many rules, with too many nuances, including some that defy logic and one or two that defy sensibility.  It used to be a socialist league, but has devolved into Soviet communism.
• There is too much replay without suitable resolution.  They've gotten a little better this season, but it's just too much.  There has to be a point where the resolution is, too fucking bad- run the clock.
• There is far too much involvement by people other than the players.  The coaches talk to the QB and one defensive player via speaker in helmets.  Most plays are called from sideline, or from offensive coordinators who operate from above.  In fact, the offense goes no-huddle to force defense to line up so the offense can call a play accordingly.  The head coach can call timeout himself, and throw the challenge flag, after the geeks have had a look at the replay.
• Conversely, there are far too many instances of boneheaded plays and acts, as there is ample opportunity for ill-prepared, ill-focused players across all caliber of teams to do whatever the Light shines upon them to do.  These coaches are so involved in the game yet, having all week to teach these guys their jobs, they fail to do so.
• The thing that insults my intelligence the most is that the structure is such that the last 2-3 minutes matter more than the rest.  57 minutes of superiority can be undone by tactics, strategy and effective use of time outs.  If that's the case, I'll skip the 57 and show up for bonus coverage, or just watch the red zone channel.

Because an immediate effect was not seen, Bokolis didn't even consider the distaste from the last CBA negotiation, where the owners locked out the players and effectively stuck them up in starving them until they accepted a markedly worse deal than the existing, even with projected brisk revenue growth.  That's another story.

Individually, none of these dissatisfiers are going to make anyone altogether drop the game.  They do, however, chip away at commitment, enough to let other things sometimes take precedence and, eventually, hold.

That's all the fuck I got.

kneeling down for the flag

The NFL has launched another edition of its rugby for fairies show.  During the rehearsals, people went and got their panties in a bunch over a number of players- first, and most (in)famously, Colin Kaepernick- not following protocol during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner.  He was protesting what he perceives as the maltreatment of minorities or somethingorrather.

On opening weekend, likely as much in response to the critics of Kaepernick's actions, other players took up the protest, some solo, some communally.  If nothing else, it compels those who would brush off the stance of a back-up player, a rather disliked player at that, to consider the underlying issue.

Bokolis, whose prevailing philosophy has always been fuck tha police!, was originally going to incorporate a rant about the police forces trending towards militaristic since 9/11, about how cops seem to be confused as to whether they're out to protect the people, or protect the state- if the latter, since any state is understood to be corrupt...

While I maintain that cops should always operate with the understanding that they are not always right, I don't know how sincerely Bokolis can squawk fuck tha police! these days.  Because of some combination of knowing a few words, not looking like a pushover and resembling one of them, my dealings with police fall in line with the vast majority.  All manner of media provide us with extreme examples- on both sides- of police behavior- from those doing the bravest, even the sweetest things for people, to those who treat suspects of marginal infractions as if they were insurgents.  I've never been one to bite at either.  My guess is that scumbag cops were scumbags before they were cops and are scumbags in most aspects of their lives.  The opposite also holds.  In other words, how they are as cops is likely pretty much how they are as people.

This isn't even about whether Kaepernick's stance has merit, because that doesn't matter to Bokolis.  This is about people yet again trying to impose their value system on the rest of us.

Bokolis finds it odd that people, in criticizing Kaepernick, take the old think of the children! lament and apply it to veterans, to conclude that Kaepernick is insulting everyone who has ever fought for this country.  Leaving aside that it's not necessarily the view of many veterans, to decide and aggregate the view of an entire group is a special kind of insult.  We've done it with many other groups, but we're breaking new ground by doing it to our veterans.  I'm not sure whether this patronizing represents the rest of us projecting guilt for not having the guts to serve in the military, but not serving doesn't mean that we're not fighting the war at home.

Further, while the rest of us are all too eager to cede protocol for addressing the anthem and flag to our servicemen/women, who aren't even asking for it, the anthem and flag belong to all of us and are nobody's to give away.  If it's not impeding our ability to honor, how each of us chooses to address them is not subject to our sensibilities or our tastes.  Teach your kids how to act; keep your fucking mouth shut about the next guy.

Bokolis can't fully define that for y'all, even if I know that's what everybody wants.  If some joker 15 feet away wants to keep his hat on and play pocket pool during the anthem instead of standing at attention or with right palm on heart, while it's distasteful on several levels, it's no one's place to call him on it...well, you can, but you may find yourself facing an 'existential' question.  On the other hand, should you have your ability to honor impeded, I would encourage you to do as Rick Monday.

There is a modified view, for those who condemn the protest but don't have the guts to stand as such, that the ball game is not the place for it.  The reasons include that it is a distraction that disrupts team unity and that this should not be done on the boss' time (or dime).

Teams almost always become disjointed because of differing intensity levels.  Differing (social, political) views could- ...could...c'mon, this ain't the first team to have a guy voice his views- cause this, but only with an accompanying lack of related discourse/communication.  In this case, Kaepernick stepped to his team and addressed it.  If anything, that would help team unity.  Besides, given the ADHD of present-day humans, the modern athlete in particular, who is always in a less than suitably-focused state, a butterfly could provide at least as much of a distraction.

Then there's the feeling that your views shouldn't be expressed at work, that everything is awesome.  Well, as part of the asinine idea of maximizing shareholder value, we've drifted into territory where the moment your views are shown to not directly align with those of the corporation, whether you're the CEO or work in the mail room, you will get clipped with the quickness, with your ability being little to no factor.  It's like the saying, that a benevolent dictator is your best friend until you disagree on something sufficiently important so as to incite murder.  Employers have not only acquired the ability to restrict free speech while you are at work, through monitoring social media, they have acquired the ability to restrict it round the clock.  To extend employers this privilege is to render the worker a slave, or at least a serf.

Professional athletes are in a unique position where they have leverage to, like Joe Pesci in Casino, tell their owners, I'm what counts out here, not your fucking country clubs.  This is important, but always lost on the public, which, at each work stoppage, tends to whinge more about the players' greed, even while expecting it from the owners (there's that shareholder maximization idea again).  After all, the owners, even Jerry Jones, can't throw a football.  If the owners are able to shove a shit CBA down a bunch of millionaires' throats, your bosses will do far worse to you.

As for it not having a place on the ballfield, if you ask Bokolis, neither does most of all the other bullshit they do.  To a public weary from being ridden all day/week/life, we'd like to perceive sports as an escape from all the bullshit.  Bokolis has news for you:  the bullshit has crept into sports and taken root, and you've eaten it right up.

Take the singing of God Bless America as part of the 7th inning stretch in about half the ballparks.    You've eaten it right up and yell at people to take off their hats.  Soon after its incorporation after 9/11, the PA announcer's introduction has invariably included a salute to our troops, who protect...our way of life.  It all sounds great and virtuous on the surface, such is the power of propaganda.  The call for continued support of our military is intended to combat war weariness, hugely necessary when the nation would be at war- if you'll recall, the tie-breaking vote was cast by a guy who was going to profit by how the war was conducted- for so long (and on a bullshit premise) that it has had to constantly amend its redeployment policies to do the equivalent of sending concussed players back on the field.  They are so desperate to condition us that the ballgame is used as a vehicle.  As for the part about 'our way of life,' it's a neat way to say, we have appetites, and those appetites necessitate acquiring resources.  It those muthafuckas don't want to give them up, well, we'll just have to take them without wracking us with guilt.

aside- This is not Bokolis playing holier-than-thou.  There are far too many people in the world and, with American appetites making such demands on resources, we are essentially telling the Brown world that it has no right to exist and/or no right to live as we do.  So long as corporations are telling me that this and that are on hand, I'm going to want them, and turn a blind eye to how many had to be killed so I can have it.  To boot, corporations are leveraging our armed forces to domesticate these people and put them to work, which eventually cheapens the value of our labor, all the more reason to want to exterminate....fucked up, right?

See how this game is played?  But wait, there's more.

For its part, the NFL brings out flags- as some celebrity it has procured sings the anthem, after the  new album has been plugged- as big as the field without the slightest regard that this might be overdoing it.  They bring out servicemen/women to hold these flags.  The fans eat this shit up.  Bokolis is a bit ignorant on the specifics, but I believe they hold a salute to troops on the games nearest to Veterans Day, when they hit us over the head with it, because wearing a poppy like the Brits wouldn't be enough.  'Military appreciation' promotions are done throughout sports.  Bokolis would give more examples, but I tire.  Regardless, this is the same NFL that force-feeds its preferred causes to its players, yet fines the players for pushing their own causes; Soviet communism lives on.



Again, this is not to say these things don't have redeeming value or are somehow evil.  Of course the human-interest aspect is compelling.  When that little girl threw out the first pitch and the catcher took off his mask to reveal that it was her dad returning home from duty and she ran to him and jumped into his arms, even while my pet cynic wondered why he would sacrifice any time with his family just to pull the surprise, Bokolis quivered.

Nonetheless, there is an element of propaganda involved, however subtle, and it needs to be called out.  It blinds from the larger picture, one that shows the state combining with the NFL to intrude into the sanctuary of sports to present the military, the flag, the nationalism, all of which are associated with the right.  It doesn't take Bokolis blathering on to realize that this country has moved considerably to the right in the last 35 years, the people seduced by the proselytizers and by the promise of a relatively low income tax burden when they inevitably strike it rich.  In the process, we've been swarmed by hyper-pragmatic assholes who fashion themselves ass-kickers, yet these chicken hawks can't kick any ass, with the possible exception of a few those they term 'weenies.'  Along the way, they've jabbed us to pieces with use taxes to the point that we effectively pay socialist tax rates, without the accompanying government services.

We are so far along that, if godfather Reagan were around today, he'd have to go back to being a Democrat, as he couldn't get put on a Republican ticket to run for recorder of deeds.  When the slightest lean to the left is met with howls of 'socialism,' it should say a lot.  To criticize it all renders one a jerk, as people don't like to admit it and certainly don't like to be bothered.  But it is as necessary as it is unpopular, lest we wake up one day and wonder whatthefuck we have done.

Worst super bowl ever

Bokolis has seen 35 of these things- I discount the 34th and 36th editions, as I was traveling and didn't tune in until well into the 4th quarter of each- and I have to say that the alleged "golden" edition- 50th, Golden State, golden confetti angels, etc.- was the worst Super Bowl I've ever seen.

First off, this is a spectacle and a pageant and a circus, hardly the atmosphere befitting a championship match.  To stay in that mindset and to preserve what remains of my sanity, Bokolis avoids the sideshow stuff.  I spend the anthem re-filling my glass* and key in after the coin toss.  During the commercials- they should be paying me to watch the commercials- I avert my eyes, talk to someone who is similarly inclined, or go for a tinkle/walk.  I certainly don't watch the halftime entertainment and I'm not into Beyonce- I didn't like her when she was hot- so I couldn't tell you shit about her alleged cop trolling.

* - While skipping the anthem may inspire howls of being unpatriotic, Bokolis contends that, between ladyboy gaga in a hillary pantsuit and the fact that you can gamble on its length, that spectacle is anything but patriotic. The only time the pre-game anthem is even shown on television is when they have something- or someone- to sell.  In fact, God Bless America gets far more play...I won't explain what they're trying to sell.  Anyone who considers this whoring out of the anthem as patriotic- feel free- has no space to run around challenging others' patriotism, as it would be tantamount to descendants of slaveowners running around waving racist paintbrushes.

Judging from the crowd noise, it's like a preseason game; judging from Eli...well, Eli had this look like it was his wife who was getting the GH shipments, so forget him.  You can say that it's always been that way, but it's now well past recognizable, or it might just be that it only dawned on Bokolis for good this year.

The Broncos offense didn't score a touchdown of its own making.  The Panthers made more than enough mistakes on offense and special teams to double down the Broncos defensive pressure.  This must have been what Super Bowl IX was like.

The murky definition of a "catch" jumped up and bit them in the ass again, as a dubious replay ruling provided the setting for the subsequent defensive touchdown.  While this fuck-up will fall victim to the control the message spin and didn't depart from the theme of the game, it certainly changed the tone and, ultimately, ruined the Super Bowl.

The soulless referee and a couple of crappy defensive holding calls on the Panthers didn't help, but that may just be the bitterness talking.  Regardless, there were several bullshit personal foul/unsportsmanlike conduct penalties called on both sides.  If the way the league goes about things weren't so reactive and ball-less, the referees just might be equipped to toss Aqib Talib for the blatant and deliberate grab of the facemask on Corey Brown.  That Talib was so glib about his je m'en fous postgame says much about a lot, most of all about what the players think of the repercussions of cynical/dirty play.

It adds up to quite a crappy way to end a season.  Bokolis is disgusted...and I don't invest all that much into the season these days.

The biggest stain on this was the replay ruling that did not give Cotchery the reception, even though it is apparent that the ball never hit the ground.  I'm sure that the league ministry of propaganda will say that, even though we didn't see this, the ball hit the ground as Cotchery does and, even though he had his hand under the ball and maintained control upon impact, as he was rolling over, the Broncos tackler's helmet hits the ball, causing it to slip around until Cotchery came to a stop, this means that he did not maintain the necessary control.

Cam Newton is not going to like his performance, but he didn't play like shit.  His teammates on offense didn't fire, notably his receivers.  Now, to rag on them...

The part of Reggie Wayne (see edition 44) was played in this super bowl by Jerricho Cotchery, who, in addition to not getting the call on the replay, dropped two passes (one of which would've set them up goal to go, but that drive resulted in a missed FG) and got blown off his feet by a (quite smaller) cornerback going high on him when he needed to get to the marker.  Bokolis isn't saying she should have had the first down- he was less than even money- but he should not have been rocked by a DB the way he was.  All that shit adds up, and his shit adds up to the most.

Ted Ginn, apparently was saving himself for a post-game bondage party, was going out of his way to avoid being hit.  His most disappointing moment was when he seemingly missed a gear shift when he caught the ball on that crossing route.  With his speed, which is all he's got, it is inexcusable that he didn't get the angle on a safety and take that to the house.  It looked like he didn't turn it on and made a break for the sideline instead...cunt.

To sort out the predictions, Bokolis hit three out of the four quarter bets, but lost on the over.  These effectively cancel out, as was their intention, so I will ignore them in the tally.  Losing the game leaves the postseason record at 7-4-1.  While it's another success, I've dropped two bowls in a row...it's totally going to fuck me up while I'm sitting on the beach.

The Waybach Machine: We don't need no water let the mutha...

Courtesy of the BBC, Bokolis jumped into the waybach machine to revisit the Bradford City stadium fire at Valley Parade, 1985, years before I'd venture into the English countryside. The fire killed 56 and, when I first read about this many years ago, immediately triggered my hood senses. I've linked to Wikipedia, but there is plenty out there on this.




Now, it's highly doubtful that it was the arson many are claiming but, callously negligent, while the simplest and most convenient explanation, may not be enough to describe this; this is a screaming case of LIHOP. Ownership had been warned that the place was a tinder box- even provided the most likely cause of a fire- and did next to nothing about it. The program explains that Heginbotham had a firebug past but, given that it wasn't exactly a secret at the time, I'm surprised it doesn't explain that the stand was scheduled for upgrade/renovation- because of Bradford's promotion, not because it was a tinder box- over that summer (at least, I didn't hear them note it...for all I know, Bokolis' attention span may be slipping). Those renovations would've cost much more than they invested into the club- back in those days, clubs saw fans as a liability, rather than something to harvest/monetize. So, leaving aside that they actually made out on the exchange, it doesn't take a cynic to speculate that ownership wasn't excited about such an expenditure.

That the fire occurred on the final match day is an incredible coincidence and, depending on your perspective and motives, good/bad luck. To boot, the guy claiming to have accidentally started the fire lived half a world away and had been in town visiting family. The program doesn't say what became of him, other than he has since died. Bokolis would presume that he fucked off back to Australia, far enough away so as not to be hounded for any followups.

It's all circumstantial evidence to be sure, but when viewed from that perspective, the official story does not pass the smell test. Since we've seen the lengths to which they went to cover up, frame even, the Hillsborough Disaster- it took 28,000 people to shout at a politician, as infuriating as it is inspiring, to gain the impetus to finally cut through the bullshit- looking the other way on an insurance job, even paying him off, isn't farfetched. If nothing else, it should have taught us all that the authorities' word can NEVER be blindly trusted.
justice for the 96
justice for the 56
YNWA

New year, new game

Bokolis has changed the boilerplate.  I've come to understand that, no matter how hard you try, you're always on somebody's radar, and that somebody usually has a hard-on for you.

This is why I don't bother to howl at the wind about cops with their cunts up in the air, likely not realizing that their function has morphed into protecting the state, which effectively makes them military (and all that implies).  Somewhere along the line, many of them started to believe that their mandate is to catch villains, with many within that subset resorting to contriving villains when/as needed.

Whether the PoPo are conscious of it or not, they are conflicted because both the People- who they believe they are supposed to protect- and their corporate masters- who, upon lumping up all those unarmed hipsters, they now de-facto protect and are beholden to, the carrot in the form of a pension- are annoyed at them.  Deep down, they must know that this is an untenable situation, that the People, even if unjust, are always right, that they only exist out here because of the People.



Lest anyone believe that their conscience will win out, they will roll over and things will only get uglier.  Bokolis will move on to some unimportant shit.

On some sort of parallel, Bokolis is in the process of withdrawing from following sports.  That is not to say that I will no longer watch, and it is certainly not a sign that I am growing up.  I still love the competition; it's the soap opera that I'm letting go.

Where it concerns football, I've explained to friends that

• 2018 & 2022 World Cup...rigged bid promises rigged tournament
• 2016 & 2020 Euro...see prior
• annual club tours of the US...charging twice as much as they do for actual league matches in the home country to watch burned out players play at 50%
• 2016 Copa America in the US...see prior
• Every other Copa America...who gives a shit

This chance to liberate eight years of my life- I can let go of the qualifiers, too- affords a unique opportunity to extract myself from the madness.  What will Bokolis do with all the free time?  I'll probably take up playing FIFA.

As far as domestic top-flight leagues, as a buddy who independently came to the same resolution explained, they are all effectively preordained.  Moreover, the support/funding of the teams is driven by the actions of people half a world away.  The whole setup assures that the top sides of today will remain the top sides for good. This has been true for at least 15-20 years- it was fun in the early-mid 90's when we were afforded a ration of european football- but Bokolis has had enough.  I will be involved only so much to maintain camaraderie with my buddies.

I will still more closely follow the lower leagues, as they have not been corroded to the same degree by these issues.

What does that mean for the NFL playoffs?  Since I still have a soft spot, Bokolis will hook y'all up with some pearls.

What does it mean for the man behind the curtain...good question.

As if we didn't know

The merger of state and corporate power is steadily and surely cinching (Guardian & Ritholtz my co-conspirators) its lock on us.  The FBI, which doesn't fuck around, working in tandem with DHS and local police, put the hammer down on these Occupy cats.  The even had some help by the banks, which, while borrowing funds from the People, had private security gathering intel on people to share with the fuzz.

The corporate media was too busy trying to figure out how to pitch Occupy to bring this to light.  I'm not surprised by either, as I've been hip to the increasing degree, over 20 years, of quasi-facsist muzzling of dissent.  Media is there to bring you to advertisements, which sell you shit paid for with money borrowed from banks.

How's all that for a feedback loop?  Everything we do feeds this machine. We really are only free to work or starve.  Now, shut up and shop. 

I guess, the Devil had nothing to do, so he fucked his kids.

What do we know...

Nah, man, Bokolis wasn't out fuckin' with these Occupy cats. I didn't catch a pepper spray to the grill. As I stated earlier, I'm not trying to do the dissident's 5-year bid. I'm not even trying to spend the night in Central. Besides, any protest that does not involve rock throwing is destined to ring hollow.

Say what you want about these muthafuckas. What you should've picked up from their adventures is that you start fucking with the PTB around here, Constitution be damned, they will come down on you. It should've also showed, once and for all, that corporations- and money- have more rights than people and our methods of handling disturbances are strikingly similar to the methods of the backwards countries we seek to "enlighten."

What makes the state of our nation all the more dire is that the police are all too willing to be the errand boys (the word is stronger, but using it would probably unneccesarily distract from the message) for the muthafuckas that are fleecing us. That, to Bokolis, is the biggest disappointment to come out of the first installment of the Occupy movement.

I don't really need to point out that the make-up of the police forces around this country is increasingly ex-military. Stereotypical NYPD used to be the drunk Irish hooples that let me walk right through them outside Joe's. In other cow towns, I was a bunch of Deputy Perkins-looking muthafuckas.

At some point, they decided to try and make the NYPD force look more representative of the demographics of the city. So, they let in more Blacks and 5-foot Latina birds. Nationally, after some well-publicized firefights with some cats armed for Armageddon and with the coming of the two wars, the faces on the force, as well as their battle gear, increasingly resembled military units. Municipalities all over the country are taking federal funding and buying up military surplus weaponry. At this point, Perkins is long-retired and living off his pension.

That brings me to the only good thing about the job- its pension. If Bokolis had become a cop (yeah, right) or a fireman (possibly) back when I'd become eligible, right about now, I'd be able to retire at half-pay. I'm still young.

Aside - Truth be told, if I avoided having the Towers fall on me, I'd've retired sometime shortly after 9/11 at quarter-pay of my highest of the last three years- which would've been 2001, as the overtime those cops were making in the aftermath would've probably gotten me close to the same pension as 20 years. I was still a kid at that point.

The reason I point out what a self-centered prick I'd've been is that the pension is the carrot dangled out in front of them to plow the field ahead of building all chain stores. After all, you can't build a bigger corporate monolith if enough ground is not level. So, while there has never been much police to protect us from the transgressions of business, there sure as shit is plenty of police to ensure that, if business does transgress upon us, we can't do shit about it.

Many cops, as we saw, were all too keen to do the job. They took relish in hammering hipsters that hardly put up resistance, much less a fight. They burned books and detained people for longer until arraignment that they would for violent offenders. But, we shouldn't expect anything more than cowardice from cops. With the pension dangling, their greatest incentive is not to fight crime. Their greatest incentive is to protect themselves and, like the rest of us, to keep their job; fighting crime is ancillary, protecting us is coincidental.

This isn't to say that all cops are this way. I'm sure there are quite a few that live the job. Collectively, however, that's what they are and what they do.

It's a shame, too. We don't expect any better from our leaders. After all, they are beholden to corporate soft money to keep their job. In the case of the Apple, the stooge in charge is one of them, a remorseless shill.

The public at large is largely misguided. Why else would anyone mock by telling protesters to get a job? I'll get to that. The point is that the public will believe whatever bullshit is fed to them my the corporate MSM. Protests will be covered insofar is the MSM call sell them.

It's left then, to change the attitudes of the police. The cops don't owe these muthafuckas any loyalty. They must think they do. Again, the carrot is the pension.

What the cops don't realize is that these muthafuckas are fucking them over, too, in a way that pensions and sweetheart loan deals don't make up for. They fuck us all by debasing our currency, which cheapens the value of our blood, sweat and tears- the only thing most of us have to offer. For the cops' efforts, they are taxed at a greater marginal rate than the muthafuckas they protect. knowing what side your bread is buttered on is of not much use when you are eating burnt toast.

So, when someone tells a protester to get a job, they should realize that the protesters are doing the working man's work, as the working man is getting fleeced even more so than the unemployed slob that is out protesting. When the cop gets out his pepper spray, or his billy club, or digs his knee just a little deeper into a non-violent protester, he should remember that the protester was not out to fuck with him.

But, maybe they should be. Failing this epiphany, the protests may be better served to take on a tone that will test police commitment to the ruling elite. That may include armed conflict...in a manner that is consistent with the idea that, if the police overstep their bounds and use disproportionate force, rather than wait for the courts to sort it out, the people will defend themselves.

Bokolis isn't saying that cops need to die or even get hurt- though it would inevitably happen. I'm saying that shit needs to happen that makes policemen reassess what they are protecting. They need to be tested. Since they can't see for themselves, they need to be made to see. How that gets done is not my call...just sayin'

That's all the fuck I got. I think I'm ready...

I thought Defecit

A lot of good shit gets kicked on Barry Ritholtz' site, but this morning's post on Deficit Chicken Hawks vs Ronald Reagan got me to thinking...the issue, not so much his words.

Anyway, why waste a good shit-talking rant on his comments?

With regard to the debt, it's not so much a question of "how do we fix it now" as much as "how does it ever get fixed."

How do we get in a positon where we can consistently run the surpluses necessary to tame the debt when a unique event drove the only surplus of the last 40 years?

Can we really become that much more productive so as to generate the revenues to pay it down? Of course we can't. Even if we could, all that extra liquidity would short-circuit the taco stand.

Can the government spend less? Those damned illegal aliens that are the real drain on our budget...or so the chain e-mails tell me. The pork and the war spending will never stop because they both feed addictions. And, even if no more goes into them, the damage is done from the bailouts.

So, who do we tell to go fuck themselves?

----Our debt holders (READ: China)? Do we sit around and wait for them to implode and then decide that we don't have to pay them? That'd be a neat trick, but might cause more problems than it solves. Maybe they'll just turn into us and spend away their credit. Ummm, leaving aside that, if they call in their markers, we've got a problem, where are they going to get the necessary crude? Yay, more war! Addiction fed.

----Our old people? Cut Social Security? Letting me opt-out of paying it? Weaning people off of it? Bahh, too easy and logical. Why not just clip them while were at it? Medicare is the real problem and people are living too long anyway. Maybe a buyout option...on their Social Security, not their lives, although paid to check out would be an interesting proposition.

----Our richer people? Pursuant to the above, let's say anyone that has made $200k/yr in any 5 years (or $100k in any 10 years) is disqualified from Social Security Benefits. Because, really, if you couldn't make that work into a nest egg, shame on you...how do you like capitalism now?

----Our richest people? Essentially, this $13T+ debt is just the government giving away money to the richest people. It's time to give it back. I'm not talking 90% tax rates, but Gates having to fork over half his shit (fuck that charitable trust bullshit, give up the loot muthafucka) will weigh a lot less on him than it does on me when I have to fork over about a quarter of my earnings. Wait a minute...that's a quarter to Federal. State and local is another ~8%, FICA 7.65%, sales taxes, toll roads (somehow this became a separate "charge"), excise taxes. Muthafucka, I'm already forking over half my check. Woman, where's my torch and pitchfork?

ahem...

The argument that it would hurt job creation will be ignored because what we call the Bush tax cuts didn't do anything for job creation. In fact, since I've been close enough to observe- which is to say, since the early '90s recession- rather than leveraging existing talent and manpower, all I've seen is companies looking to reduce headcount...and spending on technology accordingly. Granted, there aren't enough smart and driven people to go around. But, if the last 20 years have been spent trying to run leaner, from where will the necessary innovation come?

See, y'all muthafuckas fucked up the game by dumbing down this country. You couldn't build out if you wanted to because y'all're dealing with a bunch of dumbshits and each guy is a bigger dumbshit than the last (I believe the economists call that the law of diminishing returns). It's now on the government to spur growth by putting people to work to shore up the creaking infrastructure 'round this muthafucka.

But, you speak too loudly about that type of government spending and people will start throwing tea bags at your ass.

See, the lot of us were dumbed down to the point that we've come to depend on the corporation for a job. Because we can't see ourselves as the boss, we don't embrace our jobs as such, rendering ourselves limited to the table scraps, and thus are married to opposition of any policy that would upset the corporate apple cart. So, instead of fighting for policies that would employ and empower us, we fight for policies that empower our employer...all in the misguided notion that our employer will keep us around forever, in the misguided notion that depending on a private employer for work rather than on the government is somehow further up the road toward self determination.

Who do we tell to go fuck themselves? It was a rhetorical question; we've been fucking ourselves all along.

Of course, by "we," I mean y'all.

Fraudonomics

The following is a post on how this whole taco stand we call the American Economy is built on fraud.


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/28354/confessions-of-a-wall-st-nihilist-forget-about-goldman-sachs-our-entire-economy-is-built-on-fraud

In real life, I've been telling people as much for years. This economy has always grown upon the hatching of a new scam and recessions occur from the time when the scam has run its course until the hatching of a new scam.

At some point, the scams stopped being enough and the PTB (starting with Reagan Adminstration) began pulling out the stops (deregulation, lower taxes for the wealthy and deficit spending) to foster growth. To his credit, Bush I had an attack of conscience and broke his infamous "Read my Lips" promise, at the expense of a second term, to slow the metastasis. Further deregulation during the Clinton Adminstration, institution of the Greenspan Put, a refusal of Bush II to go through the necessary correction (I'm thinking he was playing Civ III and got fucked over by war weariness) all paved the way for a complete contamination. On the way, the government essentially borrowed $10 trillion and gave it to the richest 0.01% Americans...and that was BEFORE the bailouts.

Ususally, Bokolis will not bring up a problem without offering a solution. But, as the piece explains, the fraud is now so ingrained that it would be impossible to eliminate it without sending the markets back to the Stone Age (early 1982) and thereby shattering the economy...seriously, the Dow would go back to like 750 'n shit and the NASDAQ would go to like 54 or whateverthefuck it was back then.

Ignoring that this taco stand is too big to fail, you can romanticize about some Trotsky-esque revolution- replete with nationalizations, appropriations and beheadings- that could fix everything...eventually, maybe, but not before the abovementioned shattering. Unless you put some scam in place (in front of the tank) that was going to save the average shlub's retirement plan- in other words, scam the scammers- there is nothing you could do. But, as Trotsky fond out the hard way, if you're going to go through the trouble of organizing enough might to take over, why give the spoils to the people when you can keep them for yourself?

Kennesaw Mountain Goodell

It's Friday and I have some time to kill before I get to yelling at some people over whom I hold no explicit authority.

So, Goodell sits down Roethlisberger for 6 games after the latter was cleared of criminal wrongdoing for doing whatever it is he needed to do to knock down a 20 year old bird. All views Bokolis has heard from everyone reflects their ideology, that this sumbich did this and that and that Goodell was right to slap a 6 game bid on him.

If we're going to look strictly at this situation, then sure, Ben may have gotten just desserts. However, there is a bigger picture and a bigger issue.

When the MLBPA puts the screws to the owners, everybody blasts the players. The media have portrayed Donald Fehr as a sinister, almost satanic presence, a stain on baseball. When the owners were found guilty of collusion, they were slapped on the wrist; nobody batted an eye. Bokolis isn't saying that there are good guys here, because there aren't.

But, the lesson was always that, if ownership can push around such a powerful union, the rest of us are fucked. I'm sure that, were I to go downstairs and ask 100 (largely) random people on the street whether they were paid their self-perceived worth, I couldn't get 5 of them to say yes.

That is why I always root for the unions and won't bat an eye at the salaries, grossly overpaid though they may be...even if it means the owners are going to raise ticket prices to cover it.

The Roethlisberger case, and those of the other NFL derelicts before him, present an interesting parallel and are setting a dangerous precedent.

After having 4 or 5 drinks at the bar, anyone (we're talking a regular, grown-ass man) that drives home knows that, should some shit go down, they have strict liability. So, if you're going to blow a .12, like Jim Leyritz and Donté Stallworth, if some slob jumps in front of your car, you're on the hook for him. It doesn't matter that whether on foot or in a vehicle, Miamians have this issue with wandering into a traffic lane for no apparent reason (that doesn't just happen in GTA; this is a real phenomenon). It doesn't matter that the woman that caused the accident that killed her was more drunk than you were*, it's your ass.

*- That's not to suggest Leyritz be absolved.

If some shit like this (just the getting pulled over part...God forbid, not mowing down someone) happened to Bokolis, I'd be fucked; likely out of a job, with a future of events that will only drive me to drink. My career in corporate America: D-O-E-N done. I'd have the state telling me how to live my life and I'd probably have to sell my ass for cash.

Just desserts, scumbag, right? Sure, you self-righteous cunts. Like Tony said, you're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie.

I digress. Let's change the scenario to something that everybody does: Drinking on a worknight, 2 or 3 drinks over 90 minutes. That's not illegal. Do we want to raise the ante? Let's say you'd blow a .06 and you drove home afterwards and, like 99.999% of the millions of people who do this, you get home without incident.

A .06 would get you a summons, I think. But, at .06 how tired you are has a far greater effect on your driving ability and judgement than your BAC. It's highly unlikely that you'd do anything to get yourself pulled over.

Let's further suppose that, because you're a moron, you tweeted it. Corporate Big Brother picks up on this and docks you a day's pay because some cunt in HR feels you couldn't possibly have put in an honest day's work. That's some bullshit, right? The lush CEO is stealing money every day.

You want a little more credit than that, don't you? It's 20 years from now. Indians still haven't developed critical thought, so you still have your job. Yet, globalization and the Information Age have taken such hold so that, effectively, you are on call 24 hours per day. Along those lines, Corporate Big Brother has intruded to the point where it can now observe virtually everything you do and has the AI to analyze it. CBB observes that you are out boozing and hunting for poon-tang, which, it deems, limits your ability to absorb and convey information (assume your job doesn't involve the conveyance of information on how to pick up tipsy 20-something birds). Your pay grade is lowered for the rest of the week.

Too creepy? Too fucked up? All right, before leaving the office/signing off, you are now made to file an agenda of your evening plans. This information is conveyed to the establishment you will patronize, you are cut off at the appointed time, dumped in a cab and sent home. Change the options; you can stay longer, but you have to concede a vacation day, or a day's salary.

How about, while on vacation, you engage in similar activities to Roethlisberger; I'll leave it up to your imagination as to whether the girls went willingly and you had a bouncer at your door.

You're not that cool? Fine, you pass out drunk on the beach and your buddies have to drag you back to the room. They do some forgy shit to you, like make you piss yourself or draw on cocks on you with a marker or, worse yet, draw directly on your nutsac.

Not that Bokolis would know; I can hold my liquor.

The public figure, role model angle is bullshit. We're now blue-skying an employer sanctioning for perceived transgressions in personal lives in the face of signed contract- never mind that it is non-guaranteed and contains imposed morals clauses that give the employer the right to terminate...just so we can feel- WTF do you care?- that justice has been served. The rest of us don't even have that protection, but it's only a matter of time until these rules are applied to us.

Yeah, yeah, asshole. The boss doesn't even sanction for the shit we do on company time. We'll let go that you're cheating yourselves by fucking off at work. Does it make you feel better to think that you're only a hyper-diligent IT guy away, or that your company writes off a certain amount of it as an inevitability?

I'm not that smart and not all that creative. If I can think of this, you can be sure that, before too long, someone with the drive to implement worse will come along.

That's all the fuck I got.

Chased away, or Cutting the Chase

I hadn't checked my Chase credit card account since (probably) Tuesday and I had thrown a couple of hundred dollars worth of charges (two fillups, dinner and drinks for me and a friend) on it. Checking my the damage this morning, I noticed that the cunts clipped my credit limit from $14,000 to $1,100. They'll probably mail this notice to me in like 2 weeks or so and hope I do something in the interim that allows them to raise my APR to like 246% or something...too bad I don't carry a balance, fuckers.

Chase picked up my account with WaMu's ashes. I don't know WTF WaMu was thinking giving me a $14,000 credit line. I mean, I used it wisely and astutely to get me out of my mess, but that thinking is probably why they are out of business. I've always steered away from Chase because I've heard from many people about what shady crap Chase pulls on them. I even called them up to get them to stop sending me offers.

Aside- getting the offers isn't necessarily bad because the company does a soft inquiry before they send one. The quality of the offer functions as a free bootleg credit report.

In this environment, this type of crap is to be expected when a company acquires your account. It happened to me a few years ago when HSBC acquired my account and soon cancelled it because I wasn't using it. Curiously, HSBC sends me offers every month. They put some effort into those things...they must have a bottomless marketing budget.

Anyway, I knew a chop was coming from Chase- I'm suprised it took them this long- but $1,100? WTF am I, a college student? It disgusted me, and writing the following made me feel better.

Furtively changing account limits shows that Chase credit cards and its parent company have learned nothing from having legislation shoved down its throat. 35 years of having the playing field heavily tilted in favor of the credit card industry has allowed Chase to survive with a flawed business model.

Chase’s actions indicate that it considers existing customers a burden, yet it spends so much money to acquire new ones. Except for cable/satellite TV, I cannot think of another industry that cannibalizes its own customer base.

Perhaps both industries believe they have a captive customer base. But, it is more likely that they are behind the curve when it comes to innovative ways to generate revenue. So, Chase resorts to bleeding its customers dry.

In my own case, when was Chase going to tell me? Were you hoping that I’d make a big-ticket purchase that put me over the limit so you could bleed $39 (or whatever the fee is) out of me? Chase is required by regulations to eventually notify me by mail, but regulation still allows Chase to furtively change the limits as and when it pleases.

It would seem to be far more efficient to make this change and send notice with an account statement, as it would both save money on mailings and possibly save face with the customer. Of course, that would assume that Chase is capable of maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship with its customers, which isn’t the case.

To the merits of the action, I understand Chase’s need to give the perception that it is mitigating risk (I use “perception” because I can see that both JPM Chase and Citi are engaging in the same yield-chasing strategy that has gotten us all into this mess in the first place). My account was acquired at a fire sale from a company that went “belly-up” due to horrid risk management. Not that they (or you) were punished in my case, but I will readily admit that I have no direct use for a $14,000 credit line. Its main benefit is the positive effect on my credit profile.

Nonetheless, cutting over 90% of my credit line indicates that my credit profile- I can see that Chase does soft inquiries every month, so my ever-improving credit standing should be apparent- and account history mean nothing to Chase. Understand that the feeling is mutual; I’ve always known Chase to be the @$$hats of the industry- and, that’s saying something…its actions, while furtive, are hardly surprising.

That is why, even when I needed the credit, I blocked Chase from soliciting me. Having my account acquired by Chase was an uncontrollable circumstance, but I did my part for the relationship by using the card (when I could have been using other cards) and paying off the balance each month…and this day’s treachery is how Chase repays me.

Actually, Chase’s actions come at a pivotal moment for me. Now that I’m almost done unwinding my revolving debt, I will be increasing my autonomous spending. As such, I have been in the process of reassessing my creditors, deciding which ones to purge and which cards to acquire. Chase was always atop the list of creditors to purge. Now it has made the decision still easier.

It says that they will reply within 4 hours. I can't wait. They're actually doing me a favor. I'll be done paying off a bargeload of credit card debt (long process; I may post on how I did it when I'm actually done) later this year and plan to use the cash flow to have a little more fun. As part of the process, I'll be switching up my cards (I have 8) to ones that hook up the rewards...and get rid of those that treat me like shyte.

UPDATE: This is what they wrote:

Dear (Bokolis):

Thank you for contacting Chase.

I am sorry to hear that the service you received did not
meet your expectations. Your satisfaction is extremely
important and your comments are critical to our efforts
for continued improvement. Thank you for letting me know
that we can do better.

If you have any further questions, please reply using the
Secure Message Center.

Thank you,

(Jagoff)
Email Customer Service Representative

Typing back: c-u-n...I left out, "It took you 15 hours to come back with that?!?" It did, when they promised 4 hours. "Cunt" seemed so much more succinct.

Everybody gets it, the whole crew

You know shit is getting bad...in telling us to stay tuned to its "coverage" of the breakdown of our financial system, CNBC is playing actionmoviejingle. FishLips looks beaten. Dubya got this morning on and looked geuinely pissed. Either he's sore that they've made his brother look like a piker, or he must not like it when he can't crack jokes. I want to believe that he just wants to get the hell out of there.

With the this credit crisis ratcheted up another level, the government has stepped in to save AIG. It deemed that Lehman was not worth saving. This is all- I think- unprecedented in US history, where the government, through the FED, which it funded through T-Bills, has taken a position in a company. Surely, there's more to follow.

Is this a landmark point of the corporate state, a furthering of corporatism, or, perhaps more properly, corporatocracy...probably worth considering, but another game for another day.

Regardless, comparable level of government market intervention must have occurred during the Panic of 1907. Even then, it took J.P. Morgan to rally the banks to pull off the move the FED is now attempting. This time around, the banks don't appear so healthy. They own these non-performing assests

• directly
• in securitized form, through their brokerage/investment banking units
• exposed, via credit default swaps, through their insurance/inverstment banking units.

It's the credit default swaps that must be protected. Its holders are, in theory, responsible for making good on those non-performing assets. Apparently, there's about $60 trillion of these instruments out there, easily enough to derail the world's financial system. The possibility of such a meltdown came into play in 2002, where the Dow tanked to 7286 (lowest point was 7181). Back then, the banks had money, so it wasn't as much of an issue. As we're seeing, this time, it's going to take a little more finagling.

Somewhere along the line, maybe two or three days into my career, I- someone who only pretends to be smart- learned to never (all caps emphasis wouldn't do it justice, so imagine Yosemite Sam yelling "never") chase yield. I guess those in charge of this Ponzi scheme are too smart for their own good.

Both the causes and effects of the failures here are systemic. A la China, the citizens (taxpayers) have been told to sit down and shut up at every step, starting with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (didn't take that long for them to fuck up shit, did it?).

Of course, in China, whenever someone exhibits such (criminal, in my view) negligence, they usually get executed. These muthafuckas would be getting off lightly.

However, I favor capitalism over government intervention. My suggestion: Put the prosepect of a 30 or 40 year prison term in front of those deemed responsible, put out the Ken Lay poison pill punch bowl and let the market take its course.

Take this to the FED

Remember when I told y'all about how Congress is cooking up some credit card reform...and I didn't point y'all in the right direction? I've made it better. Thanks to some bird named Liz Pulliam Weston, we've now got some direction. She says that y'all got until August 4th, to make yourselves heard at the Fed, which will possibly recommend (and kind of impose not so sharp-toothed) regulation on the banks. I plagiarized the shit out of her specific suggestions, though not her thoughts/analysis, and (anonymously) fired off some lame-ass shit. I've so graciously posted it here. It says that over 19,000 submissions have been sent. Get on it.

Having made so many unwise loans and even more unwise investment portfolio decisions, the banks are in a position where they need cash. It is fully understandible that banks must be well-capitalized, for, quite simplified, if banks don't have money, nobody has money.

But, their unwise decisions (any savvy participant in securities market would know to never chase yield), should not be borne by the backs of the people, who, as it is, will surely have to fund a taxpayer bailout/subsidy. Banks with credit card divisions should not be given carte blanche to scalp credit card accountholders just because, as we are the lowest on the credit food chain, we are an easy mark.

Capitalism- where banks can take advantage of inefficiencies and people's own ignorance- is one thing; a corporate bordello- where banks are allowed to make all the rules, tilting the playing field to their advantage- is another.

Corporations (and related entities) already have more rights than people. The MBNA-supported (since swallowed up by Bank of America) bankrupcy law is one example, where corporations have a greater legal right to declare bankrupcy than citizens.

Another example is that banks can "export" interest rates across states more easily than people can (legally) transport guns across state lines.

Finally, the credit card companies have the right to alter your credit card agreement at any time and for any reason. Nominally, we have no negotiating rights; any attempt to alter those terms, it typically states, would result in cancellation of the account agreement (read: they will close your account faster than they can wipe their asses with the paper on which you wrote your "amendments.").

In practice, of course, we do have negotiating powers (not rights), subject to our leverage and credit scores. Unless one has a credit score- which has dubious underlying logic and serious underlying reporting issues- of 760 or above, one is fighting uphill.

Among the practices that should be banned is retroactive re-pricing, or jacking up the rate on an existing credit card balance, for any reason other than the customer paying late. This would be on a par with welching.

On the subject of late payments, we must eliminate arbitrary due times, which make a payment late if it arrives on the due date but does so after, say, 1 p.m. Central time. How can this effectively be proven or dis-proven? The mail comes post-marked, but not time-stamped.

Eliminate double-cycle billing, which essentially charges two months' interest on a balance carried only one month.

Unfair payment allocation, in which the issuer applies your monthly payment only to your lowest-rate balance (typically a balance transfer), so that your higher-rate balances- typically purchases and cash advances- continue to accrue interest. No one of sound mind would agree to such an allocation, so banks should not have the right to impose such terms.

Bait-and-switch offers, in which one interest rate is heavily advertised but applicants wind up with another, much higher one. Banks know- through "soft" inquiries"- the approximate credit rating of each person to whom they make an offer. So, especially given all the impositions they make upon the cardholders, if a cardholder is going to be subjected to a "hard" credit inquiry, the banks should have to make a firm offer beforehand.

Ban the charging overdraft fees based on holds. Certain merchants (gas stations, hotels, car rental outfits) are notorious for placing big holds on your checking account when you use a debit card. These holds are typically for far more than you actually spend and may not be released for hours or even days after the transactions, yet some banks count these holds as actual transactions and charge fees as if you'd actually overdrawn your account. The consumer (though the parent company of the bank may own such merchants) certainly has no control over the amount of a hold and these holds are not subject to any binding regulation, industry standard or even custom and usage. The only person at risk here, through no action of our own, is the consumer.

Along those lines, ban mandatory bounce protection, or "courtesy overdraft" coverage, that can't be turned off, which means overdraft transactions automatically get approved and rack up big fees, hardly a courtesy. It's one thing for consumers to knowingly exceed their limits and it's not the government's responsibility- though it will do so for the banks- to save one from one's own unwise spending habits. But, such an option- and, indeed, notice- should be presented to the consumer before the actual transaction and resulting imposition of fees. Unbeknownst to the consumer, there may be an exorbitant hold, as explained above, placed on the account by a merchant. More generally, the consumer should be instantly armed with any information about the account that the issuer already knows.

Imagine, for a hot minute, that The People had the right to tell the card company that sending unnecessary materials (like when they send offers to buy pens with your statement), literature or other items (and The People have the right to determine that qualifies as unnecessary and an item) gives a cardholder the right to impose up to a $50 handling fee (for each item) on the banks, payable by a reduction in the account balance (at the cardholder's option, of course). Though this is not nearly as unfair as the terms imposed by the card companies, this would have the executives at the credit card companies (and their lobbyists) up in arms.

For once, they would know how the consumer feels.

Time to pick on GenY

So...today, at work, a VP came fuckin' with me and this other cat because, about 8 months back, we had given him rather cogent, yet different, takes on how shit (stock market, economy) was going to go down. It was time for an update. So, we dropped some science on him. I eased off some consumer credit analysis because, as I stated, I didn't want to go off on some tangent about GenY and it's unwillingness to experience/deal with inconvenience and discomfort. After the VP was sated, I went off on that tangent. We had a sidebar about the GenYers...it went like this- I address my colleague's question- only without the salty language, bad grammar and attempts at humor.

--Does Gen X, as well as the boomers, know how to dial back on perceived entitlement to our current ‘quality of life?’ Or did that humility skip 2-3 generations?

Back about 10 - 15 years ago, the issue the world had with GenXers* is that we- I say "we" because I consider myself a charter member- weren't about anything and that, as a group, we were sullen, cynical and rather nihilistic...what's wrong with that?

Of course, the older generations- boomers and, to a lesser extent, the "greatest"- couldn't "get" us because they did not understand any world view but their own, which we rejected early on because it is too willing to go along ("...that was good enough for me") with the bullshit they were fed (by gov't, media, etc.) and/or doesn't acknowledge that it's bullshit, bullshit.

Rather than engage or enlighten them, we were waiting for them to get out of the way, biding our time (some of us popping E like sweettarts or going into K holes^...hey, the old farts were flaming us for being sullen) until we would get our hands on the controls. In our day-to-day lives, we have more balls, are more willing to tear down and start over and we are less willing to take anything as given. I think that leaves us well equipped to handle our business, get down for the crown, etc.

To bastardize Carl Jung, the foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience pain or legitimate suffering or discomfort. GenYers typically have far less capacity for discomfort. They complain about everything and wear their emotions on their collective sleeve. Having grown up in the age of convenience- a time when MTV didn't show music videos- they have far less in the way operational capacities; things are supposed to just happen for them...probably from mouse clicks.

I'd like to take the more enlightened view that this is just another case of the older generation bemoaning that the younger one is comprised of a bunch of pansies. But, from being around enough of them, they don't seem to be about anything...but their own comfort, which they think is their birthright.

As an example, consider the opposition to the war...or, as it's known around here, Haliburton And Related Contractors Security Guard Operation (HARCSGO). If someone is against the war because of conscience, or because they don't wish for their tax $$ to be spend on improving some firm's ROI (return on investment), I get it. I can even understand if someone is thinks the war is unjust (like that's ever a consideration). But the overwhelming impression I'm getting is that the Obama-lovin' GenYers don't want war is because they don't want to upset their own apple cart existence...based on all this, it appears that they are scared to engage.

Aside - The blood-for-oil argument doesn't fly with me because, if we weren't in there holdin' it down, China and/or Russia and/or another Arab bully would be in there. So, while it's fucked up, that's what it is...and what it is is what it is. I'd be saying the same shit if I were over there. As Biggie explained, real niggas do real things.

What's left of the "greatest" can cut back because they lived the Depression. The boomers had those experiences drilled into them and never had the luxury of a rapidly appreciating real estate / investment portfolio. Even though we (GenX) have our share of space cadets, I have a reasonable amount of faith in my generation not to fuck shit up. The GenYers...there are so many hot chics and the girls are tougher than the guys. Let's see if these little muthafuckas ever grow up.

* - I speak from big city experiences with GenYers. I couldn't tell you what Davenport, IA is thinking. These kids have crystal meth, I hear that shit'll do some work on you. Don't nobody smoke no weed no more?!
^ - Bokolis categorically denies any illicit drug use

Take this to the Bank

Apparently, Congress is growing its balls big enough to legislate to its benefactors...errr...banks and credit card companies. In true "...there oughta be a law..." fashion, Congress has picked out some shady moves and intends to stamp out some of the more objectionable items. What are those items? Look them up...WTF do I look like?

Generally, I'm not a big supporter of enacting legislation to address problems because those entities with the most money are in better position to be heard and, by extension, get their points across. All that the rest of us have are links to our Congressmen. As such, legislation is sure to get watered down or, worse yet, give the card companies explicit license and authority to put our heads in a vise.

That doesn't mean I'm against capitalism. Capitalism is one thing; a corporate bordello is another.

The real issue here is that corporations (and related entities) have more rights than people. The MBNA-supported (since swallowed up by Bank of America) bankrupcy law is one example, where corporations have a greater legal right to declare bankrupcy than citizens (it is easy for the cynic to point out that the bankrupcy law is evidence, however circumstantial, that the banks saw this mess coming).

Another example is that banks can "export" interest rates across states more easily than people can (legally) transport guns across state lines.

Finally, the credit card companies have the right to alter your credit card agreement at any time and for any reason. Nominally, we have no negotiating rights; any attempt to alter those terms, it typically states, would result in cancellation of the account agreement (read: they will close your account faster than they can wipe their asses with the paper on which you wrote your "amendments.").

Imagine, for a hot minute, that you had the right to tell the card company that sending unnecessary materials (like when they send offers to buy pens with your statement), literature or other items (and you have the right to determine that qualifies as unnecessary and an item) gives you the right to impose up to a $50 handling fee (for each item) on the banks, payable by a reduction in the account balance (at the cardholder's option, of course).

In practice, of course, we do have negotiating powers, subject to our leverage and credit scores. Unless you have a credit score- which has dubious underlying logic and serious underlying reporting issues- of 760 or above, you're fighting uphill.