Total Shock!

I came across a story that I had to write about. It was not in one of the recommended newspapers. So I did a little research and found this same story printed in the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/nyregion/24hart.html.  It is one of absolute horror. Something so shocking that my girlfriend and I both felt our jaws drop to the ground.

This is a story about Hart Island. A seven minute boat ride from New York City. This is where 800,000 bodies have been buried since 1869. This is not a misprint. Most of those buried were babies or infants as well as people with no names, no identities, or no family. We are not talking about Nazi Germany. We are talking about modern day American culture.

Until approximately 1991, all of this information was kept secret. A woman named Melinda Hunt went on a fact-finding mission by submitting a Freedom of Information request to have any kept records of those buried released to the American public. She has since been helping many families locate friends and relatives who seemed to have fallen off the planet and were never were heard from again.

This raises so many questions about our society. Funding is surely one of the top reasons along with proximity and having no one to claim the dead bodies. Will we find another solution or continue to dump bodies there for centuries to come?

Craze Across the Nation

You remember the famous line, "We can work it out."  Well it is about to happen.  Apple has "worked out" a deal with the Beatles to sell their music on iTunes.  The Beatles are the best selling music group of all time and ranked 2nd throughout the 2000s to Eminem.  They have sold 177 million albums in the United States throughout the years.  Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, has persuaded all former members of the Beatles to agree to this landmark decision.

Roughly 3/4 of all album sales are cd's.  They are more profitable for record companies and musicians. Apple has become the largest distributor of music on the internet.  It is said that they just basically break even on all downloads.  They use music as a tool to sell more iPods and iPhones.  Bagging the biggest elephant of all, the Beatles, is sure to boost sales out of the roof. 

There have always been several bands that hold out and do not allow others to distribute their music.  I can remember Pearl Jam for years would not allow their music to be sold via mail order companies such as BMG and Columbia House.  Beatles music has been around for four decades.  That is something very special in itself.  This little deal could re-ignite the flame once again.

Hope you enjoyed this blog.  I referenced this material from The New York Times at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/business/media/16apple.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper.

Oil prices are on the upswing once again.....Hmmmmm........

My lifestyle revolves around constant travel throughout the spring and summer. I just read an article about this subject in Business Week. The article was entitled, "Why Oil Could Top $100 a Barrel." The forecast is that interest rates will continue to drop and weaken the dollar even further. Oil prices have risen 17% since Labor Day. There is some speculation as to whether this will happen or not. Now they are saying that the U.S. has plenty of oil and that the Saudis are pumping a decent amount. The Saudis are said to be satisfied with pricing in the $70-85 range.

Peaking Beyond Age 50

     Greeting y'all! I must admit that I have had a hidden agenda. I have now written 10 blogs from 10 separate publications. This week I visited http://www.mentalfloss.com/. They have put together a list of the top 10 people who didn't make it big until after the age of  50. I will not cover them all because President Ronald Reagan is listed at number 10. Of course he was a somewhat popular actor as a young man therefore I consider him as having made it much younger in life.
     Edmond Hoyle was 70 years when he wrote the rules for a wide variety of card games. His name is synonymous with a deck of cards. I am sure everyone knows Colonel Sanders. He was operating a small restaurant when they built an interstate seven miles away from his city. This took away traffic and his business declined. He went to work on perfecting spices and cooking techniques and then opened what would be the first of the KFC franchises. Sanders was 65 years old when he got this idea.
     Laura Ingalls Wilder who penned, Little House on the Praire, didn't publish her first novel until the age of 65. The police use a weapon to incapacitate individuals who are wanting to fight during questioning or arrest. This device known as a taser gun was invented by Jack Cover in 1970 at the age of 50. It wasn't used by a police department for another 10 years when the LAPD purchased a shipment. When he passed away at the age of 88, his product was used in some 45 countries around the world.
    

"Foreclosuregate"

     This week I thought I would mosey on over to motherjones.com to do some reading.  As the banks are prepping, yet again, to foreclose on delinquent homeowners, Andy Kroll interviewed author, Michael W. Hudson.  He has just penned, "The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Lenders Fleeced America-And Spawned A Global Crisis."
       The sub prime mortgage industry began in the late 1980's in Orange County, CA.  Long Beach Savings and Loan was at the forefront.  Hudson interviewed nearly 200 people in the industry from secretaries to vice presidents.  Exchanges of money, liquor, cocaine, and sexual favors occurred regularly in the mortgage business.
     Hudson has connected Orange County to Wall Street's fourth largest investment firm, Lehman Brothers.  Lehman was very diversified, but in the end real estate dealings brought the company down.  Back dated documents and false affidavits were used to process loans instantly.  Attempts to reform and correct the problems don't really mean a whole lot because they have yet to be implemented.
     After reading this article, one name caught my eye, Long Beach Mortgage.  They were the financial group that I purchased a foreclosed home from in 2004.  Money was loaned for an extended-cab pickup truck with this house as collateral.  Which by the way was owned free and clear.
     With these home loans that went awry, it sounds like most folks fell delinquent after interest rates skyrocketed.  The stock market crash after 9/11, unemployment, and a poor economy also caused issues.  We all need to watch out for number one.  I feel that individuals should always bank where they have banked their entire lives.  When that is not possible, sometimes a smaller, local bank can be more trustworthy.  Don't purchase more of a house than what you need.

Sarah Palin Continues to Hang Tough and Pursue her Dream

     OK Peeps.  Here we go.  I would like to discuss two myths about Sarah Palin.  #1: Palin cost McCain the 2008 election.  Once named McCain's running mate, their fundraising and support improved dramatically.  #2: Resigning as governor was rash.  Once she returned from the 2008 campaign, everything changed.  The political coalition which she was involved with had collapsed, her critics were calling for one investigation after another into her affairs causing financial woes, and every time that she would travel out of state, she would be accused of not caring about Alaska.
     I have always been a registered Democrat.  I am completely open to voting for the best candidate.  I did vote for Ronald Reagan.  Some say that Palin is unelectable but the fact is that she is more popular now than ever before.  She does have many naysayers but she needs to get focused, bring her A game, and and put a strong sense of passion into several issues instead of just attacking the incumbent. 
     This is in reference to an article written by Matthew Continetti for the Washington Post. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/14/AR2010101404794.html?sid=ST2010101404854

"Helping Boost the Economy???"

     Earlier today I read a very puzzling, scary, and I might even call it somewhat of an amusing article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  The story was written by Stephen Ohlemacher.  It tells of how 72,000 dead people were sent stimulus payments.  These were issued by the Social Security Administration as part of the Recovery Act to help boost the economy and bring our country out of the recession.  These payments totalled $18 million.
     Another $4.3 million in payments were sent to 17,000 prison inmates.  These $250 vouchers totalled $13 billion which went out to 52 million people who either receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income.  S.S. spokesman Mark Lassiter reported that the majority of those inaccurate payments were recovered.  Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma stated that the SSA lost $22.3 million in American tax dollars.
     As I mentioned earlier, this is a very puzzling story that caught my eye.  I can sort of understand that the SSA probably doesn't receive immediate updates on deaths around the country.  Even if they would send out notices that would have to be returned, it is likely that many people throughout the country would die before those checks got into their hands.  In regards to the inmates, they were not in prison at the time they were approved for the bonus payments.  Once again for future years, some kind of process to help eliminate such a large number of inaccurate payments needs to be put into place by the SSA.