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GLFranklyn.ComGregory Franklyn (3)     GLFranklyn Opportunity Knocks Part I - Wall StreetPosted Thursday, November 20, 2008 (1 year 4 days ago.) Viewed 21 times. The world seems like its going to hell in a hand-basket all of a sudden. Financial Markets, The Housing Industry, US Auto Makers, The Republican Party, they all seem to be circling the drain right now. Unlike investors in the Great Depression, I dont feel like jumping out an office window. It could be that ignorance is bliss in this case, but Im not having a panic attack and Id like a moment to tell you why. Actually Ill need a bit more than a minute of your time. If youll hang with me here, this will be a 3 part series covering Wall Street, The Auto Makers and the Republican Party. Lets get started! One reason I may be feeling calm about all this may be that I work at a Homeless Shelter and mine may be one of the few jobs in America that would seem relatively secure for the moment. Were anticipating growth! I dont mean to make light of the possibility that you are either unemployed or under-employed as youre reading this. I have been there and I know its no pic-nic, however Im hoping that I can convey a bit of hope in the midst of what looks like a disaster but may evolve into one of the best things that could have happened to us right now. The excesses invited by what had become a financial orgy on Wall Street has its roots way back in our history and gets all elemental about the concept and history of Capitalism, but those excesses were given steroid treatments in the 80s by the union busting and financial deregulations of the Reagan/Bush era. The Clinton years, although prosperous by comparison, did little to stop the excesses. Those excesses were given even more steroids by the Bush Regime in the new millennium and the inevitable result is that The chickens have come home to roost! Its an unfortunate and frightening scenario that could have been avoided. A great deal of the excess of Wall Street money management was made possible by our national leadership consciously looking the other way while Harvard and Yale trained lawyers created financial instruments that defy understanding but look fabulous on paper, and selling those instruments to opportunistic buyers with dollar signs in their eyes. Whats tragic about this is that scant few of these miscreants are in jail tonight. Don Henley (The Eagles) put it best when he wrote A man with a briefcase can do more damage than a man with a gun ever could. The opportunity we have at hand while the melt down is occurring is to let most of it fall to bankruptcy. Bankruptcy, coupled with the regulations and Supervision entailed in Bankruptcy receivership will force these corporations to change their strategies to a more responsible, and accountable mode of operation as a matter of survival. It will mean life or death to them and Im betting theyre going to chose to live! In the 50s the US economy was humming along at a good steady clip. It was considered strong down to its roots and there were few global companies. Most of the economy was found on main street in cities and towns across the country. Of course there were your Sears & Roebuck and your General Motors and Ford, there was your AT & T/Bell Telephone (then known as Ma Bell) and the like, but most of our economy flourished in smaller more regionally centered companies. Mergers and acquisitions were rare. The gradual departure from that economic model to the merger, acquisition and global expansion model we have now, took several decades and our economy experienced drastic fluctuations along the way. I wonder if it has occurred to anyone besides me that the transformation and the resulting market instabilities may be interrelated? Is it necessary, or even a good idea to accept that Bigger is Better when it comes to companies? We have the opportunity right now, while these global giants are imploding under their own weight, to move our economy back into a more localized, more consumer responsive, less interdependent business model. That direction would allow businesses which do not function properly to fold without destroying the entire national economy in the process. While the transition will be a tremendous discomfort, thats a far better outcome for everyone including these corporations. Gone will be the days of Looking out for Number 1. It will be replaced by a kind of patriotism that will dictate moral strength and character rather than worrying about whether your President is wearing his flag lapel pin. Well be a total mess for a while, but we will re-invent ourselves into something much better if we do this right! Just like we always have. I have noticed that leadership in America has a trickle-down effect on the bulk of the country. It sort of sets the mood, if you will. The values projected from the White House has real and tangible impact on the nature of what is acceptable or desirable behavior in the mainstream of society, particularly in the functions of the marketplace. The influence of that leadership under the new Administration you chose will be a dramatic shift from the past few decades. That influence will be rooted in discipline, accountability, genuine patriotism as opposed to the fake posturing weve grown accustomed to, and considerably more fairness across the entire financial and social spectrum. I think it will reach much further into our collective lives as well. Real values may well have a resurgence as a result of the nature of the people the Obamas are at their core. At least thats the impression I get from watching how theyve acted under some pretty powerful pressures during the past two years. With this new Presidential Administration you brought into being, you can be sure that you will be called upon to make a contribution to your nations future survival that will entail a great deal more then going shopping! You will be called upon to become an active participant in the direction you have longed to travel for so many years. The influence of this family seems to open the doors to the places we, as Americans, have been chomping at the bit to go! And, what places might those be, you may ask? Oh, I dont know, abiding by the Constitution of the United States of America perhaps? Being a good neighbor to the rest of the world and cleaning up our yard and painting the house, maybe! Stop interfering in the affairs of state of other sovereign nations. You knopw, stuff like that! I think that as a Nation over the past 8 years we may be feeling a bit of Battered Wife Syndrome. We know that this regime is wrong but we feel powerless to do anything about it because we are so splintered and divided and this Regime has become so strong. How could we possibly make them stop abusing that which we hold so dear? The Obamas influence appears to be freeing us from all that and reminding us that this great country belongs to US and it is great because WE are great. That hasnt changed! Its going to take a minute or two for us to adjust to the new perspective, perhaps, but Im reasonably certain that the change is going to do us good! Opportunity Knocks, are you going to get it? Much Love, Gregory 
Permalink Comments (0) Election 08 Voter Fraud AlertPosted Saturday, September 27, 2008 (1 year 59 days ago.) Viewed 11 times. The first election I was eligible to vote in was 1972. I lived in Arizona at the time. Nixon and Humpfrey were tearing into one another and I had just registered to vote for the first time. I registered as a Democrat but when my voter registration card arrived in the mail it said I was a Republican. I really didn't think much of it at the time. Sometimes typographic errors just happen and it's nobody's fault. Shortly thereafter I was watching the local news and noticed a story that said there were about 17,000 new voters in the state of Arizona who were complaining that they too had registered as Democrats but got their voter registration back saying they were Republicans. I pretty much figured out that my voter registration wasn't just a typo by some overworked secretary getting a little tired late at night sitting at a typewriter. The reason I'm telling you this is because of a news story I saw this evening on my local news. I live in Oregon now, and have for roughly 20 years. A woman who lives about 3 miles from me got 2 mailings from the Republican Party containing an official request form for an absentee ballot from her old state. Take a wild guess what state it was. Yup, Florida! She said she has lived here and voted in at least 3 elections since leaving Florida years ago. She showed the reporter the two mailings and right there on the front was a picture of John McCain! The reporter went on to say that the elections office here was receiving hundreds of reports from voters living and voting in Oregon who have received similar ballot requests from New Mexico as well as Florida and the mailings were coming from the Republican Party. In case you didn't know, there is no national voter registry. Elections are state run and they don't check up on each other to see if voters are voting in multiple states every 4 years! Later this evening I was watching Countdown with Keith Oberman and there was a story about Republican "Caging" in my childhood home of Macomb County Michigan. If you are unfamiliar with what "Caging" is, it refers to challenging the validity of a ballot once it has been cast. It appears that Republicans are looking up voters in Macomb County, mostly black, whose homes have gone into foreclosure and sending them a mailing. When the mailing comes back, they are added to a list that is used to challenge the validity of that voter's ballot based on the fact that their address is not current on their voter registration. Keith's guest was an X-Convict whose crime was voter fraud and he talked about a number of dirty tricks he used to do for the Republican Party to help them steal elections. He wrote a book about it and that's why he was a guest on the show. A few of the tricks in his book are also what got him thrown in prison. You may remember similar stories coming from Florida in 2000 when thousands of minority voters' ballots were invalidated because they had the same name as someone who had committed a felony. You will also remember identical stories coming from Ohio in 2004. Republicans are targeting Black and Hispanic voters to cancel or invalidate their ballots because these voters traditionally vote for Democrats in huge numbers. If you watched the Republican National Convention you know what I mean about Republicans and minority voters. That convention was a virtual ocean of white people. I was watching with a friend when I noticed how white that crowd seemed. So we made it sort of a game looking for Black faces in the cut-a-ways when the camera was focused on the crowd. We saw 4 that evening. The arena contained about 20,000 people! The following passage contains strong language and is entirely inappropriate for viewing by children. Reader discretion is strongly advised: My point is that Republicans are some scurrilously amoral mother-f@#$%ers who have no issue with criminal activity when it comes to elections and they've been at it for a VERY LONG time. These criminal tricksters are not some rogue elements unknown to the Republican Party Leadership, they are operatives that get their paycheck from them. These party leaders are the same people who talk about good Christian Moral Values, wrap themselves in the American flag and insist that they are the trustees of your Freedom and Democracy. If the poll numbers are close in this election, John McCain will almost certainly become our next president and these reports of voter tampering foreshadow the reasons why! Don't let them get away with it AGAIN! Keep a careful eye on your states election and speak up if you find irregularities. Your vote should be counted, it should only be counted once, and it should be counted in the column YOU selected! Just so you know! Much Love, Gregory
Permalink Comments (0) Of Corporate StewardshipPosted Saturday, September 27, 2008 (1 year 59 days ago.) Viewed 10 times. I'm reasonably certain we are witnessing a defining event in the History of The United States. This feels like a moment that our grandchildren will need to memorize in order to pass on to the 10 th grade. I'm referring to what has the potential to become "The Wall Street Meltdown of 2008". I can already see it right up there along side things like "The Boston Tea Party", "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" or "The Battle of Gettysburg". All, events that changed the course of our shared history. What we do right now will, very likely, determine what direction our Democratic Republic will take for generations forward in time. Our economic picture here in the New Millennium is pretty grim and the reasons are becoming clearer as the days pass. Some businesses have become so large and so intertwined with the fabric of our economy that their failure would have a severely negative impact every American family! This is not a good thing, but it holds in its deeply disturbing folds, the potential to set us on an economic course toward a more open, more empowering and more user-friendly future. We have a unique opportunity right now to level the playing field of economic opportunity and growth that could strengthen our union and make it less dependent on a select few boardrooms in New York City. While this history making drama unfolds I sincerely hope that we pay close attention to the dangers inherent in the concept of deregulation. I believe that Capitalism is our best hope for individual progress and the impetus of actualizing big dreams. That's a good thing. But without regulation, Capitalism by its very nature, becomes an amoral predatory monster! I think we're seeing that underbelly becoming visible right now. I see a corporation as a being. Much like a child! A corporation must do certain things to preserve it's own survival. Like a person, it must consume to live. It must establish relationships for its comfort, security, productivity and advancement. It must compete with other corporations to maintain vitality, to learn new things and develop innovation to remain viable. Failure to thrive, like any human being, will necessarily result in illness, and eventual, death. Much like any being, a corporation must also have something to do, be it creating something, teaching something, procuring something, providing something, protecting something, it must have work to survive! A corporation however, in and of itself, does not have a moral code. The only moral code a corporation can have is the one its stewards give it. Of, and to, it's own, a corporation's only mission is to thrive or perish. The larger that being becomes, the more it must consume for it's survival. The natural progression for such a being is that, without proper stewardship, it must eventually consume everything! The danger in unregulated Capitalism, is lack of proper stewardship! Regulation of it's size, it's consumption, the nature of it's work, much like raising and educating a child, is necessary to provide it with a sustainable foundation from which to thrive without becoming predatory. In the same way a child needs guidance for it's own protection and consequences for rejecting that guidance, so does a corporation! I hope that we are paying attention to what has happened to the stewards of the financial service corporations now threatening our stability. In a sense, they became drunk! Their inhibitions, their moral code, their judgment, became impaired in an environment of unfettered activity. Corporations have, largely, been left to their own devices for decades in an environment of deregulation and those unregulated devices have brought us to this juncture in our history. It's like we parents left town for the weekend and the kids had a big party that got out of hand. "Letting the market decide!" clearly has its dangers and we are facing a worse case scenario of those dangers right now. The market is not competent to decide on its own. Only it's stewards are! What we do in response to this corporate behavior will decide whether we thrive or perish. The sky, contrary to what George Bush would have you believe, is not falling! We're in a critical pinch, no question about it, but the sky is not falling! The urgency expressed by the White House has more to do with political will than any real resolution. Giving Seven Hundred Billion dollars to the same, drunk, stewards of these morbidly obese corporations, without regulation or guidance and without consequences for rejecting that guidance, we are perpetuating the very environment that fostered this behavior to begin with. That would be just fine with our current regime, but not so good for a Democratic Republic. Right now we need a competent parent to step in and take control. The parents who were in charge, were at the party getting drunk with their kids! Right now, these institutions' attitude is not one of repentance, but rather boldness. They are not coming to us with hat in hand apologizing for, or accepting any accountability for, anything that happened at the party. They are challenging us with threats of certain doom. "Get us out of this mess', they seem to be saying, "or we'll have to make your life a living hell!" Like a child, these corporations who have gotten themselves in trouble, need to lose some weight, exercise a bit more judgment, eat less junk food and learn some manners! Perhaps a good spanking might get their attention! Like a good parent we must write a small check right now to prevent certain collapse and then take whatever time we need to guide these unruly institutions into sustainable, well mannered behavior patterns to prevent further recalcitrance and ensure their continued health and well being. These institutions have proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they are in dire NEED of supervision and guidance. Our failure to provide it will say more about our stewardship than it will about their excesses! Much Love, Gregory
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