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Oakland And The Market Crash - What About Our "Swap Option Bonds"?

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When I worked for Elihu Harris as Economic Advisor between 1995 and 1999, Goldman Sachs responded to an RFP issued by our then-treasurer Jan Myzck to issue municipal bonds for Oakland projects. At the time, Goldman was competing with an organization I favored, the minority firm Pryor McClendon Counts (PMC). Goldman proposed using a kind of "swap-option" bond, where our payments were essentially swapped with those of another party -- a counterparty -- with the idea that we would be under the rate of interest of the other bond when it was lower. I prefered PMC's more basic proposal because it had less risk attached, but Goldman won the competition and was the sole-source organization with zero minority participation -- a situation I just plain didn't like at all and since Jan was Black, I was really steamed that she handled matters the way she did. PMC had a good -- great =- proposal but she was in Goldman's back pocket. Elihu hated the outcome of the dea...
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Seems PG&E Wants To Screw San Francisco? What About Oakland?

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Does PG&E wanto to screw San Francisco? If you consider that the utility doesn't back using clean energy sources and has not met State of California guidelines for renewable energy, it sure seems so. You can change that with the passage of Proposition H - "Yes on H." It's the first initiative of its kind; tell your friends around America about it and have them call friends in San Francisco and tell them to vote "Yes On H".
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Palin tried to hire Terrorist Gordon Liddy as spokesperson.

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Sarah Palin thought it was a good idea to hire Liddy to promote drilling in ANWR. Did she know Liddy was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, wiretapping, contempt of court and contempt of Congress; was willing to kill a janitor and a journalist as part of the Watergate break-in; admitted plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution? Kidnap plans? read more | digg story
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The Nation: The Audacity of John McCAIN

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Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who after a quarter century on Capitol Hill surely knows the political etiquette, did not refer to Senator Obama as respectfully as he would would any other colleague. If Obama had referred to McCain as "that one," he'd have been attacked for showing disrespect or ridiculed. THAT ONE? No wonder Obama is America's choice read more | digg story
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Obama - McCain - Obama Will Win; The Economic Problem Is Why

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This video was created just before the debate, but my prediction seems to have held and for the reasons I state here. This American Economy is in trouble. It's in bad straights for three basic reasons: 1) According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate topped out 10 years ago and then decreased and continued to do so through to present day. What that means is that more and more people basically stopped looking for jobs and working at jobs than ever before for the first time. 2) The total rate of job growth started to increase at a rapidly smaller rate in the late 1990s and that continues today. You can see the BLS data I collected right on the video. We added about 20 million jobs each decade from the 60s to the 90s, but again in 1999, the job growth party stopped cold. We added just barely 5 million jobs in ten years, that's a drop of 75 percent over what we've produced in the past. 3) During the period of the job los...
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