Lending to marginal borrowers wrecks economies

Lenders often lend to marginal borrowers just because they can charge a high rate of interest.  Very profitable, IF the lender makes his payments.  If the borrower declares bankruptcy or undergoes a revolution, the lender looses him money.  Which is why greedy banks did sub prime mortgages in the 00's  causing great depression 2.0, which we are still in.  Which is why the same banks loaned a mountain of money to Greece which is never going to be paid off.  Which is why the same banks loaned $82 billion to Puerto Rico, which isn't going to get paid off  either.  And has put both Greece and Puerto Rico pretty much out of business.
    Bank stock holders need to shape up and dump the managements making these destructive loans.   They wreck the borrower's economy which is immoral, and they wreck the bank's bottom line, which is worse.  The MSM could help by publicizing the names of the banks doing dumb ass loans, and the names of their senior management. 

So what really happened in San Francisco?

The Mexican illegal immigrant who killed a young woman, Jose Lopez -Sanchez has a long record.  According to the Daily Beast, the San Francisco Sheriff's office asked the Feds to  send Lopez-Sanchez to San Francisco to answer a 20 year old San Francisco warrant for selling $20 worth of pot to a city narc.  Apparently the sheriff's office never heard of statute of limitations.  Also apparently suffers from terminal stupidity.  As might be expected, all the evidence on this 20 year old charge was gone and the judge tossed the case out.   And so, the sheriff's office turned Lopez-Sanchez loose, rather than give him back to ICE. 
   The sheriff just gave a news conference on TV.  He is a weasel, spoke to confuse.  Did not say anything about requesting the Feds to turn Lopez-Sanchez over to him.  Far as the sheriff was concerned Lopez-Sanchez just appeared as if by magic. 
   The newsies are on the sheriff's case for turning Lopez-Sanchez loose.  The Feds wanted him back to deport him a sixth time.  The sheriff claims the feds gave him the wrong paperwork and the San Francisco sanctuary city law didn't let him give Lopez-Sanchez back to ICE. 
   That sheriff ought to be canned.  If the Daily Beast story is right, they ought to can him for terminal stupidity in requesting Lopez-Sanchez be turned over to him on a 20 year old minor drug arrest.   Any sheriff's department has better things to do than rake up 20 year old low level offenses.  Then he ought to canned for turning a five time loser loose on city streets instead of turning him over to ICE. 

Law enforcement whines about robust encryption

They claim that once suspects start encrypting, they cannot read their mail, or their disks.  Thus bad guys can get away with it.  Too bad.  If they actually had some evidence of wrong doing they could prosecute.  Maybe they ought to get out of their padded swivel chairs and do some investigating. 
As for myself, should I go to the trouble of encrypting my email or my disk, I'd like to to stay secret from everyone.  I don't encrypt right now, but the way the Obama administration has been acting maybe I ought to start. 

Product Champion, Steve Jobs

So just what did Steve Jobs do for Apple?  Youngest son claims, noisily, that Jobs was not an inventor. Which is probably true, even in the early days, the key technology of the Apple II was the Mostek 6502 processor that powered it.  This clever and low cost chip was designed by Chuck Peddle, originally of Motorola and later of Mostek.  So what did Jobs do?
   Jobs saw a market for a low cost home computer.  The Apple I was so primitive as to lack case work, the product was just a bare PC board with a QWERTY keyboard.   The smash hit Apple II computer was the Apple I PC board inclosed a molded plastic case.   Jobs got this product to market, and it managed to beat out the competitors, Radio Shack and Commodore, and a few others that I no longer remember. 
   After the Apple II, Jobs went on to do Lisa, an advanced computer that didn't sell well, the Macintosh which sold very well, in fact is still on the market.  Then he did the Ipod, the Iphone, and the Ipad.  Each of these products were new, nothing like them on the market, they all sold like hotcakes.  What Jobs did was define the product, giving it features that people would pay for.  He understood the technology and the products took the technology as far as it could go, but not so far as to become unbuildable.  And he pushed the product development thru to a successful product.  
   New product development is tricky.  There are innumerable hurdles the product jump, any of which will bring the product to an untimely end.  It takes firm upper management support to keep the product moving ahead towards market.  Jobs supplied that support.  It also takes real judgement and feel for the market to determine what product will be a winner and which will be a loser.  Jobs got this delicate balance right most of the time.  Lisa was the only Steve Jobs product that didn't really work out.  All the others did, which is a remarkable record. 
   So, here's to a remarkable product champion.  We need more of them. 

Seven Year Car Loans, On used cars?

I'm beginning to read those "buy a car from us" flyers since my poor old Mercury is rusting out.  Today's was offering mostly econo boxes for $12K and pickup trucks for $20K.  And offering seven year car loans.  Damn, that loan will last longer than the car. 
   Used to be three years was standard and four years was considered flaky.   Times are a changing.  Not sure I like this particular change.  It means the car prices are so high that people can't afford 'em unless they stretch the payments out over seven years.

No, we were not hacked

So says United Airlines, New York Stock Exchange, and the Wall St Journal.  All had their computer systems crash this morning.  United stopped flying, NYSE stopped trading, dunno what happened at the Journal.
  Noo, this was not malicious hackers.
  You can believe as much of that as you like.  

Words of the Weasel Part 44

Heard on National Progessive Radio this morning.  "sufferers from substance abuse disorder"   We used to call 'em druggies.