Kaminsky: MS security assessment tool is a 'game changer' • The Register

Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes said at the time that the institute's program, based on a literal interpretation of biblical creation, falls outside the realm of science and therefore could not be designated "science" or "science education."This rep is making the tired old "fairness" argument, "Why are people who call themselves scientists afraid to hear two sides of a debate?" Berman asked Friday.
1. In 1999, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which had prohibited the merger of commercial banking and investment banking.
2. Regulatory rules permitted off-balance sheet accounting -- tricks that enabled banks to hide their liabilities.
3. The Clinton administration blocked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating financial derivatives -- which became the basis for massive speculation.
4. Congress in 2000 prohibited regulation of financial derivatives when it passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
5. The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 adopted a voluntary regulation scheme for investment banks that enabled them to incur much higher levels of debt.
6. Rules adopted by global regulators at the behest of the financial industry would enable commercial banks to determine their own capital reserve requirements, based on their internal "risk-assessment models."
7. Federal regulators refused to block widespread predatory lending practices earlier in this decade, failing to either issue appropriate regulations or even enforce existing ones.
8. Federal bank regulators claimed the power to supersede state consumer protection laws that could have diminished predatory lending and other abusive practices.
9. Federal rules prevent victims of abusive loans from suing firms that bought their loans from the banks that issued the original loan.
10. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expanded beyond their traditional scope of business and entered the subprime market, ultimately costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
11. The abandonment of antitrust and related regulatory principles enabled the creation of too-big-to-fail megabanks, which engaged in much riskier practices than smaller banks.
12. Beset by conflicts of interest, private credit rating companies incorrectly assessed the quality of mortgage-backed securities; a 2006 law handcuffed the SEC from properly regulating the firms.
"If such businesses can only survive by paying poverty-level wages, creating huge costs for taxpayers in the form of welfare payments to their workers, then maintaining such an industry makes little sense. Welfare payments to low-wage workers represent a large subsidy to business. For example, if taxpayers provide health care in the form of Medicaid, then employers do not have to provide health care. Of course, employers find this a very desirable situation. Employers do not see the costs of Medicaid because they are diffuse, borne by all taxpayers, while employers have a very strong incentive to keep down their labor costs by keeping immigration high. By providing workers with welfare and other means-tested programs, taxpayers are in effect paying part of the salary for these workers. Like any business receiving subsidies, those who use unskilled labor will try very hard to retain them. The fact that some businesses wish to retain this subsidy cannot, however, justify the costs to taxpayers, or the reduction in wages for the poorest American workers. "Additionally, the title of the CIS study cited below? "The High Cost of Cheap Labor" Right. They are pointing out that this is an economic problem created by a market that is working the way markets work with little oversight from the government.
----- Forwarded Message ----
From:
Sent: Sunday, March 1, 2009 9:27:04 PM
Subject: WHY ARE WE BANKRUPT?
This is astounding and infuriating. Why isn't this in the papers? Please read and pass it on.
WHY ARE WE BANKRUPT?
!
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:
Boy, was I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.
I & nbsp;hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I also have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/%20TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the A merican taxpayers.
Verify at: http://premium.CNN.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML
9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC%20RI%20PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.HTML
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht 12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'
Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/PDF/deportation.PDF
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm>
14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .' Verify at: http: // www.drdsk.com/articleshtml <http://ww w.drdsk.com/articleshtml>
The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR AND IF YOU'RE LIKE ME HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY; IT IS $338,300,000,000.00 WHICH WOULD BE ENOUGH TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY.
Are we THAT stupid? YES, FOR LETTING THOSE IN THE U.S. CONGRESS GET AWAY WITH LETTING THIS HAPPEN YEAR AFTER YEAR!!!!!