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Del Mar’s Arthur Lipper III says whistle-blowers should be rewarded
RE #22: I think I just set myself up to looking at lots of state corporation codes... Mutuals were the only thing I liked when I attempted to take the California insurance agents' course, as part of becoming a recruited Primerica independent operator before the collapse. I can sleep well now because I chose to not finish and work under that Citi component. Cooperatives seem OK as well. I just don't like setting up corporations as entities in places where obedience to the state (and thus the intent of state law as the express will of the people) is not the paramount interest of officers and counsel. In my opinion, that problem goes a long way to explaining CCDC and SEDC as corporations masquerading as redevelopment agencies but not really under City control.— April 24, 2010 10:39 p.m.
Remember: Most Scams Are Legal
RE #8: I have no investment strategy except to stay alive if everything does collapse. Things in this economy seem tentatively OK for the moment, but with my health problems, I have no long-range financial goals except to have enough to tip the grave digger and his friends a case or two of cold ones.— April 24, 2010 10:25 p.m.
Remember: Most Scams Are Legal
I can't speak about the rest of Seidman's tenure there, but on his personal directive I was one day an unpaid intern and the next a GG-4 with a whole lot of latitude (plus considerable overtime to train barely computer-literate staff members on making mainframe DB queries from their DOS PCs, thanx to my '87 A.S. in data processing from City College). During regular business hours, I was drafting internal HQ memos on NOT using the old FSLIC accounts to record expenses in the new RTC, then churning out new hire numbers as requested for congressional EEO audits. It was a zoo, as my mentor was often traveling around the country and I had a roster of 2000+ attorneys to pick on, with the biggest minority of them in Dallas-Fort Worth as our busiest regional (so you have an idea of who among others wasn't up-to-date on the proper account numbers). Lacking tools and immediate supervision, I cashed my first paycheck and bought myself a copy of QuickBASIC 4.5 at a downtown DC bookstore to start coding report generators like mad... It was kind of like an "Apprentice" audition, with no script. It made me seriously appreciate my two years of staff training as a cadet field officer in JROTC. Thank you, Col. Donald E. Gray. The bit about not using the right set of account numbers for expensing seems to fit the outsider observation that it was a real blunder blender. At the same time, the under-capitalized real estate speculation that brought on the S&L crisis was no picnic, either. To be honest, I have no frakking clue how current high-level SEC employees could even find the time to watch porn all day long UNLESS THERE WAS NO JOB FOR THEM TO DO AND NO DIRECTIVE FROM ABOVE TO FIND ONE. Now THAT is a congressional investigation I'd like to see.— April 24, 2010 10:18 p.m.
Del Mar’s Arthur Lipper III says whistle-blowers should be rewarded
" 'Wall Street bankers are not your friends and cannot be trusted to do the right thing' " (#5). Corporations such as large banks are literally artificial persons with certain rights under the laws of their states of incorporation (as opposed to natural persons such as you, me, or even the "illegal alien"). Acts of the state of incorporation (such as creating artificial persons) must be respected by other states per US Constitution Article IV. In each state, the corporation's first duty by law is to its shareholders. Peculiarly, a corporation's first duty is not to the state that created it nor the laws of the several United States separately or as the Union. This would make a corporation a poorly-disciplined militia member if there was ever an emergency need for its services. Recent history shows that more often it is the corporation that needs the bailout due to its own "bigness", as if we had a beneficial interest in keeping alive the economic equivalent of a malignant life-sucking tumor. A logical corollary to this is that corporate officers and corporate legal counsel must be viewed with true suspicion, for they serve a master that which does not uphold the law as its first duty. This probably why corporations were rarely created by the English Crown up until the time when California Civil Code section 22.2 deemed all English common law as precedent unless our own legislature or the people take up the task of making law in the sovereign state of California (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?sec…). The Crown understood the danger of arbitrarily creating other "kings" or viceroyalties of realms at least partially carved out of his own. The only financial institution to be trusted is the one which makes all of its natural customers -- or better, all natural persons in its state of incorporation -- stockholders at the time of it's creation, In that way, the corporation will then be bound by law to the interests of everyone as residents of the service area or state it serves. By that definition, we should be able to trust credit unions when their interests coincide with our own...— April 24, 2010 8:50 p.m.
Best eaters money can buy
Obviously top city officials won't be found in line at the Grab&Go sub shops... as they might actually be exposed to voters and the rest of the unwashed masses...— April 24, 2010 3:07 p.m.
"VA" May Not Be What It Seems
RE #7: I've been at VA La Jolla earlier this year to see flag-draped gurneys rolling down the hallway. Over thirty years ago, I used to fire three volleys in Old Guard final honors over flag-draped coffins at Arlington National Cemetery. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/ceremonies/milit… Any attorney who is so without professional ethics, as to mislead anyone regarding her or him running a "legit" information service by means of faking any VA web site, ought to be made to wear a dress-blue Army uniform with plain buttons and without insignia, then be air-dropped into Tehran on a Friday, just ahead of the call for afternoon prayers.— April 24, 2010 3:03 p.m.
Remember: Most Scams Are Legal
RE #6: And this is why after working with FDIC/Resolution Trust Corp. HQ during the S&L Crisis (just as Iraq invaded Kuwait), I haven't had a bank account or any credit cards of my own in decades. I'll tell you who I would invest in: local businesses that are not corporate and which do extend credit to working people living in the neighborhoods. If there's ANY integrity left in the system, that's where I'd expect to find it. Of course, if the business owner lived in another neighborhood far removed from her or his place of business, then that would be a good reason to invest elsewhere as well.— April 23, 2010 2:11 p.m.
Del Mar’s Arthur Lipper III says whistle-blowers should be rewarded
If the odds are pretty much zero on anything being done to protect us from extreme bankers hooked on exotics like derivatives and other "synthetic" products, then reasonable people need to find ways to exists economically without a banking system that has a tendency to march lockstep off a cliff every so often. That goes for mega-insurance giants like AIG. If the business is too big to fail, then it's probably too big to care if it ever does a legitimate service for most of its individual customers. Likewise, it probably is a business that most of us won't miss when its gone anyways. In Encantostan, there seems to be a brisk trade in baked goods for labor-intensive services, home remodeling for auto repairs, and bartering in general. Personally, I only swap for goods that have depreciated to the point of having only minimal salvage value... it reduces tax liability in a barter deal to trade things at zero value for zero value.— April 21, 2010 4:39 p.m.
Get Money This Way, City
“ 'The City is closing beach facilities, like restrooms, and is going to do away with fire rings and brown-out fire stations due to lack of funds,' said Olson. 'If they were to enforce each and every law down in the boardwalk…you would have plenty of money.' ” There's a lot of city cash to claim from bike riders on sidewalks in business districts all over town, including downtown... especially around the courthouses, of all places...— April 19, 2010 12:10 p.m.
Local Unemployment Rate Back to 11%
This does kind of mute the talk of a comeback for the consumer, at least locally...— April 16, 2010 1:12 p.m.