Category Archives: blog

Going after Goldman: Finally, the real culprits could pay for the housing crisis

So Goldman created an investment it knew would fail and sold it to investors? Sounds like “The Producers.”

Here’s what Goldman can do as a goodwill gesture:

What if everyone currently  underwater in a mortgage were given  a short position of  1,000 shares of Goldman stock, right now?

That could help a lot of people–especially if Goldman takes a nice drop down. Thank you, GS.

Or they could give 1,000 shares of GS stock to screwed over mortgage holders  once the stock bottomed. That way, we can all rise from the dead at the same time.

Goldman says it’s innocent. But that’s standard comeback fare in the face of a fraud charge.  Here’s my bet: As Enron was to California’s energy crisis, Goldman was to California’s  subprime mess.

Goldman’s only defense is based on greed: Hey if the housing market didn’t collapse we’d all be winners! 

Yeah, sure. But then again it was  the complicated credit swaps it concocted  that created the circumstances for the housing bubble to burst.

Demonizing Tiger: Woods’ villification has racial overtones

People talk about Nike using Earl Woods’ voice out of context in an ad prior to the Masters. But is anyone grousing about the full-page family values ads now appearing in the major dailies featuring Phil Mickelson and his cancer-suffering  wife Amy? 

Talk about exploitation. Even better that Mickelson is white, the better to offset and polarize the whole situation in a way America can understand. i.e., Mickelson good, Tiger bad.

Bad Tiger! This is your punishment from the culture at large for being a selfish, amoral, pleasure seeking human being.

If you had been a bank, you could have received a bailout. But now it’s everyone’s turn to dis and dish.

This is one bandwagon I’m not hopping on.

Now they’re even commenting on how Tiger swears on the golf course (no secret).  Suddently golf and sport has gotten all puritanical and proper.  Does anyone get on baseball players for spitting? Howabout how basketball players handle their mouthguards, then high five each other. How unsanitary. Oh, and about that vigorous ass patting…

All of that is nothing compared to jumping on Tiger, the devil himself.

I hope Tiger recovers soon.

Consider the sexual proclivities of other public figures and how they’ve bounced back. After Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton is a revered world crisis solver. After biting women in secret hotel trysts, Marv Albert is back doing the NBA playoffs. (“YES!!”). After dumping his longtime wife in favor of a scandalous affair with a younger woman, newly divorced golf anchor Jim Nantz was there at the Masters with the call. 

Even David Letterman gets a light lashing after his intern trysts. Always good to have an extortionist come in and trump your bad hand. 

So comebacks do happen. But is there extra joy in dumping Tiger because Woods happens to be of mixed race?

He is at once the greatest black and Asian American golfer to ever play. He may be the greatest golfer period.  When he was good he was treated like royalty. But his indiscretions find him being treated with a whole let less compassion. He’s not a pariah yet. His golf game is too good. But the culture seems to be turning against him more so now that Mickelson can be the public face for the new Victorian era of golf.

Never mind Mickelson’s gambling habits. That’s an allowable vice, I guess.

But just ask yourself if Tiger would  be treated differently if he were white? 

   

Pacquiao pounds Clottey, the anti-challenger, to win unanimously; Now he should quit and focus on his next opponent…the Philippine Oligarchy

The WBO Welterweight title  fight at Cowboys Stadium was suppose to be a real challenge: Manny Pacquiao against Joshua Clottey, a bigger, taller, stronger opponent, right?

But Pacquiao showed how easy it is to win a  fight when your opponent shows up but strategically decides not to fight back.

You simply throw more punches–like 830 more. 

It doesn’t matter if the punches don’t all land cleanly, or even knock out your opponent. There’s simply no way you can lose a fight if you outpunch your foe so convincingly that he seems cocooned for most of the fight.

In this 12-rounder, Clottey landed just 108 of 399 punches. That’s like a mild workout. Was his heart not in it? Or was he scared of Pacquiao who landed nearly 3 times more punches (296) out of a mindblowing 1,231 punches.

For every one Clottey punch, Pacquiao threw 3 more, often in a furious combination.

Clottey’s strategy appeared to be a modified “rope-a-dope,” a ropeless rope-a-dope, standing in the center of the ring, gloves and arms covering up body and face. If the intent was to let the Filipino punch himself out so that Clottey could emerge from his bunker-like state to knock out a tired Pacquiao, well that was just a uniquely dopey idea.  Call it the “Clottey.”  It didn’t work.

It did prevent Pacquiao from knocking out Clottey like he did Miguel Cotto or Ricky Hatton, both of whom went after Pacquiao aggressively and opened themselves up to Pacquiao’s tricky left hooks. But even as Clottey covered up, Pacquiao simply sidestepped and pounded away, scoring at will with body shots to Clottey’s ribs.  Clottey occasionally caught Pacquiao with an uppercut that caught  the champion’s chin,  but nothing Clottey did could stop Pacquiao from answering with a four or five punch combination.

I thought after seeing Clottey bloody Miguel Cotto last year that this would be a good compromise for fight fans who still hope to see Pacquiao take on Floyd Mayweather.

But Pacquiao is just too fast, too good, and too well conditioned. And now there’s really no one left to fight.

Pacquiao doesn’t need the money nor the challenge. And he doesn’t need the drama of more Mayweather fight negotiations.

Seems like a good time to retire, especially when you’re on top of the world.

Besides, Pacquiao’s already announced a challenge far greater than Floyd Mayweather– politics.

If Jim Bunning can be a U.S. Senator, why can’t Manny go to the Philippine legislature?  The election is in May, and if Pacquiao wins, it could be the first step for the People’s Champ in helping to restore Filipinos’ faith in their corrupt, dysfunctionalgovernment. (Even more corrupt and dysfunctional than the one we have in Washington, D.C.)

I like the politics idea more than Manny singing karaoke or doing hokey super hero movies in the Philippines. Pacquiao is the embodiment of “People Power.”  He’s no oligarch. He’s  a real self-made Filipino man, who rose from politics to be the most popular Filipino in the world since Imelda Marcos and Cory Aquino.

The question is whether he has the brain power to be more than a figurehead leader. He’ll have a fighting chance to prove his sincerity and passion to help the Philippines if he quits now. 

After 56 fights, enough’s enough. Now he needs to save himself for the real main event of his life.