Thoughts for a Wednesday

It is still technically Wednesday, so of course I have some thoughts to share :) And I begin with...

1 - LOST!! (Bet you couldn't guess)  I really don't have much to say other than I have no clue how this show is going to end, and there are only like 4 episodes left.  You would think that we would be getting to the so-called "climax" point, but I have yet to figure anything out.  Of course last week's amazing episode with my future husband at its center was a game-changer and it sort of continued on through this week's episode.  Basically though any episode that contains Des is good in my eyes.

2 - Deadliest Catch is back! And if you're not watching this show, I highly recommend getting into it.  You don't need to know too much background about the captains and crews from previous seasons, but just in the first episode the action is already way intense.  Besides, you will quickly find out that there is nothing more thrilling than Mike Rowe's voice saying, "The vast Bering Sea...".  And each moment with Captain Phil is poignant because you know that you are watching the chronicles of his last months on the Bering Sea.

3 - Speaking of good TV, the local PBS station here in DC has been showing some really interesting programming this week.  On Monday they showcased a program on the Holocaust in North Africa and Arabs that helped Jews to escape death (see yesterday's post, It's Complicated for more thoughts on this program).  Tuesday was a Frontline program on all the back room deals and politics of the recent health care bill that was passed.  Tonight was a program on genocide called "Worse Than War" about how genocide never comes as a surprise and always is driven by politics.  While this isn't the light, fluffy stuff (no Project Runway or Bachelor here) that I normally use to distract myself, but occasionally I have to remind myself that I need to continue learning about these important subjects - engage the side of my brain that got somewhat left behind in college :).

4 - I have more thoughts, but it's getting really late and they are all escaping me.

So apologies - just 3 real so-so thoughts for this Wednesday.  I promise to do better next week!  And everyone should watch Stephen Colbert's episode from tonight because it is amazing - I don't have any more thoughts because I have been laughing too hard at his brilliance.

Where's Robin Hood When You Need Him?

I love PBS.  Public television may be a communist, socialist, pretentious, and pernicious organization (according to my father :)) - but you can't deny the quality programming and opportunities for learning things of real value that they consistently offer.  I've already watched one amazing program, called "This Emotional Life", which is a post for another day, but I want to talk about Frontline's investigation into the credit card industry that was on last night.

I am outraged.  The practices that have gone on, both encouraged by the industry itself and deregulation by the Congress that it pays billions of dollars to, have led to a business system that is so unbelievably unethical.  There is a way to make money honorably and then there is the way that the banking industry has decided to make a profit, which is upon the backs of poor people who can't afford the high interest rates that they get charged once they miss one payment.  They end up getting sucked into an endless, bottomless abyss cycle of debt that they have a slim chance of escaping on their own, unless they declare bankruptcy and thus effectively wipe away any chance of securing credit again!  My heart broke as I saw the journalist interview Citizen Joe after Citizen Joe and the sad stories of how they never missed a bill payment until one day, something happened (because life does happen).  This one guy for instance always paid his bills on time his entire life.  Then he got tonsil cancer.  He battled through the treatment successfully, but then was laid off from his job.  Now unemployed, he missed one payment...and then one more...and then another - each time with his interest rate climbing higher and penalty fee after penalty fee being added to the bill.  It is highway robbery.

The banking industry's defense is that they have to make money somehow.  How are they going to make a profit?  They claim that the fees and terms of the credit card contract are clearly spelled out.

But then you see the piece of paper that they send with their credit card "offers" and it's all in the tiniest print, with terms only a person with a finance degree can truly understand.  And the kicker is that it's purposefully designed that way.

The Frontline program then addressed the credit card reform that Congress passed in 2009.  But here is where politics comes into play - and by politics, I mean lobbyists (who prey upon both sides of the aisle, both Democrat and Republican).  The problem with getting a bill through the houses of Congress is that they can become derailed by money.  And the money is held by the lobbyists and industries that are affected by these bills - industries like the banking industry.  Through compromise and bipartisanship (or not) a bill gets through both houses of Congress - where it can than be derailed by the President, who may or may not sign it.  Sometimes the White House is influential in getting the bills passed - sometimes they are influential in stopping the legislation from even making it out of committee.  It really is a miracle that any law ever gets passed with these restrictions.

But significant bills can get passed - and that's when the constituency arises and makes their voice more powerful than the lobbyists of the industry that is against its reform.  The problem with the credit card reform bill that was passed in 2009 was that it was given 8 months before it went into effect.  What do you think the banks did during that 8 months?  If you guessed they figured out the loopholes of the bill, you would be correct.  The bill still allows them to raise their interest rates arbitrarily and without any forewarning.

And it's not just the regular individual citizen that is affected - Frontline detailed a story about a small homebuilder who relied on a flow of credit to pay his employees, purchase building materials, etc.  He now stands on the precipice of having to close down his business because of the hike in interest rates.  He can't pay his employees because his credit card bill is so high - how is a business supposed to forecast or build a business plan when it may have an ever-decreasing cash flow but they can't plan for how much it will decrease by?  It hurts entrepreneurs and other small businesses - the very people that a strong economy is built upon.

The only thing that gives me hope against the power of the banking industry lobbyists is that the fact that this small reform bill was passed.  It is a first step.  Any reform movements that have gone on to have a significant impact on society always started off small and with small legislation.  The lobbyists can be overcome by an outraged public that continuously pushes for even stronger reform -and that is the stage where we find ourselves now.  Will the public push hard for more economic reform?  Or will Wall Street be allowed to continue on its merry way?

Closing thought - Timothy Geithner is a crook and should not be in charge of the Treasury Department of the United States.  The banking industry must have jumped for joy when his nomination passed through Congress. If Obama was really serious about reforming the economy and the banking industry that helped spiral us into the recession, he should have pushed through that rarest of commodities - a banker with integrity - a Robin Hood, if you will.

*And sorry for such a long post*

An Outward Look...

I'm a person of many, many interests.  From art in all its various forms, to sports in all of its various forms, business, international relations, history, literature, movies, TV shows - basically anything that captures my attention and holds it for more than 10 seconds I count as an interest of mine.  One of my top interests though is international relations/foreign affairs (which is intimately tied to the subject of history - to me, you cannot know much or care about foreign affairs if you don't know the history behind the stories that appear in the newspapers).  In the past 24 hours I've come upon two great international relations related content that I think people should know about.

First is a link, courtesy of my favorite reporter, Kevin Sites.  Back in 2005, Kevin did a project for Yahoo!News called "The Hot Zone" - spend a year reporting solo on the human stories behind some of the world's "hottest" conflicts.  If you ever have an afternoon free and you want to learn about some of the more under-reported conflicts going on in the world, go to the Hot Zone archives and read a few of his stories and watch some of the videos that he shot. Kevin is also the author of the book, "The Hot Zone", which I also highly recommend. 

Anyway, any link that Kevin posts on his Facebook page is worth a read, and this one, courtesy of Foreign Policy magazine about the Top 10 under-reported stories of 2009, is no exception.  It highlights foreign policy issues that need to be watched carefully as they could have a great impact on the direction of foreign policy in 2010.

The second thing that I came across was a documentary on PBS, called "The Power of the Poor", which has brought to light a name in international relations that I had never heard of: Hernando de Soto.  And I am so grateful that I have learned who this man is, because his work brought down one of the most brutal terrorist regimes that has existed - The Shining Path in Peru.  I have briefly heard about the Shining Path before and was only vaguely aware of their importance in Peruvian history, but this documentary shed light on the entire situation.  What a story!  What a history!  The Shining Path, so brutal in its terrorist tactics that it was compared to the Khmer Rouge, was a Maoist organization that counted close to 80,000 members.  Fed up with their impoverished situation and frustrated with the government they turned to violence to bring about "revolution" in Peru.  And the sad thing was that the poor were just as much victims during their reign as they were before the Shining Path existed.  In comes Hernando de Soto - a man who "discovered" how to help the poor achieve prosperity through legal reform, making economic progress possible.  His legal reforms undermined the purpose of the Shining Path, and as such, Hernando and his Institute for Liberty and Democracy were targeted by the Shining Path with car bombing attacks and assassination attempts.  But in the end, de Soto and the IDL got their reforms through the corrupted government.  More than 50% of Peru's poor have been given economic opportunity to start their own businesses and enjoy the economic freedom and prosperity that owning their land and access to credit gives to all who are able to do the same.  

Basically, de Soto defeated the terrorism of the Shining Path through legal reform that allowed capitalism to flourish among the Peruvian poor and give them opportunity that they never had before in their entire history.  There are definitely still impoverished people in Peru - the documentary definitely addresses this - but the opportunity that never existed before to not be poor now exists for the Peruvian people.

This gave me hope, which is not something that I often have when it comes to world conflicts and systemic problems like poverty.  But perhaps if we approached the Middle East, Africa, and former Soviet republics with legal reform that made economic prosperity through capitalism possible, we would disable the power of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other "big-name" terrorist organizations.  It is a solution that is rife with hardships, difficulties, and complexities - but isn't that also true of trying to "solve" this problem militarily? 

Anyway, it is a topic that has piqued my interest and once I read de Soto's book, "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else" I'll be sure to share my thoughts :).