Alan Greenspan got taken to the wood shed this week in his testimony before congress regarding the current economic melt down. He called it a "once-in-a century credit tsunami." You can read his entire testimony herehttp://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2256
The reputation of the once highly regarded financial guru is taking a substantial hit in hind sight as we can examine some of his policies and determine that they had a direct impact on our current situation.
Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman was quick to point the finger at Greenspan in his opening remarks.
"For too long, the prevailing attitude in Washington has been that the market always knows best. The Federal Reserve had the authority to stop the irresponsible lending practices that fueled the subprime mortgage market. But its long-time Chairman, Alan Greenspan, rejected pleas that he intervene."
Some of this is true, but of course Henry is silent on the subject of reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the entire period and that failure can be clearly laid at the feet of Barney Frank and others. Democratic affordable housing goals have come back to haunt them in driving prices down dramatically to the point that lots of housing is affordable but there are not enough buyers or lenders with money to enter and stabilize the market up to this point in the crisis.
Had conventional lending practices been allowed to stay in force over the past seven years we might have avoided a good deal of the distress we are now under. By instituting lending practices that encouraged unqualified buyers to over extend themselves, it contributed to an enormous increase in demand and subsequent substantial increase home ownership but like any bubble bursting it is now wreaking vengeance on the down side in a way that has never before been experienced.
This kind of social engineering in the housing markets can also be illustrated in Massachusetts under the Chapter 40B "anti snob" legislation. This legislation allows a developer to get state approval to over ride local zoning ordinances and build very dense projects in markets that would otherwise not allow them.
What this does is to decimate urban housing. The process is simple. In a real estate market that is not artificially manipulated, investment will eventually go to where costs are lower and land is cheaper. Such opportunities have existed all over the Commonwealth. In the North, in cities like Lawrence and Haverhill and in the South in Fall River and New Bedford, land for housing is available but why would housing developers take risks in building or rehabbing in older urban settings when they can use 40B to build very dense and very profitable housing in more desirable suburban communities? Additionally, why would a renter go where market forces would direct them when they could go to a manipulated market that provides roughly the same cost but is in a better location?
Poorly thought out housing legislation in Massachusetts, however, is not what triggered the mess we are in right now across the nation. Some very specific events can be traced to the tumbling financial dominoes that contributed to the problem for the system and then exposed its weakness.
The first was the dramatic decrease in interest rates following the September 11th attacks. In an effort to jump start a paralyzed America, Greenspan and the Fed dropped rates to levels unseen in our life time. After the millenium and internet bubble bursting, the Fed began to reduce the Fed rate from a high point of six percent in May of 2000 down to 3% in August of 2001.http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/statistics/dlyrates/fedrate.html
Six days after the September 11, 2001 attacks the Fed cut 50 basis points and continued to cut until the rate hit a low of .75% in November of 2002. What followed was a purely natural reaction to such cheap money. The economy flourished in a host of areas particularly in housing and in other large ticket capital consumer goods. The post 9/11 market low on the Dow Industrial averages was 7181.87 on October 10, 2002. Almost five years later to the day, the Dow close on October 9, 2007 was 14,164.53.
Huge amounts of debt were issued through out the entire economy. Home owners accessed money through equity loans, businesses borrowed at cheap rates, big business floated bonds, non profits went on building sprees and municipalities, states and other agencies all did like wise.
The benefits of such a boom were visible through out the United States and other international societies. With money available and cheap sources of labor in such emerging economies as China and India, purchasing power went a long way. The ultimate benefit in the U.S. was that more people entered the housing market than at any time in U.S.history. The benefit globally was that more people left poverty than at any time in history.
The bloom started to come off the rose in 2005. The Fed had begun to raise rates in 2003 in order to bring a more realistic cost of money into the market place. However, by the end of 2005 it became apparent that the inflation fighters at the Fed were going over board. In August of 2005 the Fed had completed ten consecutive increases in the rates and they weren't done. Although stopping increases was apparent even to an amateur, http://philgallagher.blogspot.com/2005/12/stop-raising-interest-rates.html, the Fed went on to raise rates 7 more times, culminating in a Fed Funds rate of 5.25% in June of 2006.
As rates rose it began to affect many of the designer type mortgages that had been created during the housing boom. Adjustable rate mortgages began to reset as well as LIBOR plus mortgages continued to climb and soon a trickle of people in trouble began to become a steady stream. What exacerbated the problem for the home owner was two other assaults on his budget. Heating and utility costs were climbing as well as property taxes. Communities experienced significant increases in residential values while commercial values sank because of increased competition from new construction. This resulted in property taxes rising on the residential sector significantly.
Where the crack in the credit markets came was in a rather odd place . Earlier this year it was reported that an obscure debt market called the auction rate market ceased to operate.
The auction rate market was a place where a variety of issuers of debt could get short term rates on long term paper by simply having an auction every 7 or 28 days. The buyers were companies, government entities and investors with lots of cash who wanted higher than money market rates of return, yet could have liquidity if they needed the money. The market was made by Wall Street firms who would buy up paper for their own books to smooth out any liquidity differences between buyers as sellers.
This system enabled the Wall Street firms to essentially sell this market on the basis of it being as good as cash. Having participated in this market myself for many years and having purchased hundreds of millions of dollars for clients, I had no doubt as to the veracity of that statement. Working a different book of business these days in the banking industry I was not close to events as they unfolded, yet when the auction rate market failed earlier this year I was stunned that such a thing could happen so quickly.
Here is where rates and foreclosures in the housing market began to take a huge toll and up to this point what has decimated and perhaps killed the investment banking business. Sub prime is now a term that entered the American lexicon.
During the housing boom, Wall Street saw an opportunity to sell securities made up of tranches of mortgages that were sub prime, meaning made up of home owners who would not qualify for a conventional mortgage you might find in the regular banking community. Because they were made up of something as stable as the American home and they offered a good rate of return, many institutional buyers purchased them and added them to their portfolios. Of course, many of the investment banks who wrote these SIVS (structured investment vehicle) and (RMO's (residential mortgage obligations) had them on their own books.
Now comes the bursting of the bubble and the term liquidity crisis becomes a common term in America and around the world. Mark to market accounting, although less well known also plays a key role.
As home owners began to fail and as the housing market began to cool, suddenly mortgages contained in the investments on the books of these companies began to drop in value. As companies who needed cash began to liquidate these securities at discounted prices it spread through the markets like a fast moving virus. If you have a similar security to mine in your book and I sell it at a 20% discount the rules now said you had to adjust your balance sheet to show that loss of value.
As the values plummeted and subsequently became unable to even be priced, the damage began to unfold in the form of a complete lack of buyers. The story continues to unfold and although we may be at or near a bottom we are still in uncharted waters.
I can leave you with one very dramatic example of the damage done to a companies balance sheet. On July 28, a famous Wall Street firm sold a total of 30.6 billion dollars worth of CDO's (Collateralized debt obligations, CDOs are an unregulated type of asset-backed security and structured credit product) for a total of 6.7 billion dollars. They sold at this level because the firm could not find anyone else willing to buy the portfolio for more.
Was it a fair price? Fair of course is in the eyes of the beholder. The buyer got a basket of securities back by mortgage collateral. If we say that everyone of those mortgages default and go to auction, in order for the buyer to lose money every single one of those mortgages would have to auction at 22 cents on the dollar. The world famous firm that was the seller of those securities was bought in a fire sale two months later.
It is difficult to guess the bottom of the market and when the credit conditions will stabilize. One thing that is not hard to predict is that going forward it will not be business as usual in the credit markets. Fundamental rules must be put in place and maintained so that the leveraging of the economy does not precipitate a near destruction of the country again.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Give me just one thing
It is no secret that in Massachusetts you would find supporters of a liberal Democrat. It is also no secret that who ever was the Democratic nominee would get the endorsement of the Boston Globe. It used to be that you could be assured they would endorse a Democrat because they always do. But now that they are the junior varsity for the New York Times, you could be sure that the word came down from Pinch just in case anyone was thinking of going off the reservation.
In all probability come election day I will pull the lever for Obama, partly from family and party affiliation and primarily because I have never been a real big McCain fan. He is to old, seems to lack real commitment to his own party, compromises on key issues and is in questionable health. McCain Feingold campaign finance reform has been a disaster and his position on immigration was rejected unceremoniously by both parties. Despite all of these liabilities I have not completely ruled out McCain because of one very important reason. That reason is substance. At least McCain has some. He was right on the surge and he was right on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Please help me out here. People I know, like and respect are voting for Obama but when I ask them this one question not one of them can come up with a straight forward answer. What exactly has Barack Obama accomplished on his own in life that would qualify him to be the president of the United States?
Has he run a business or government? Has he authored any legislation? Has he led a movement or fulfilled a commitment of any kind? Has he managed men and women in crisis or in battle? The Globe says, "Obama shows great faith in the possibility of persuasion overseas and in the ingenuity of the American economy." Or how about this magnificent achievement, "the way Obama has run his campaign has been a marvel of sound management." This is the essence of their endorsement, a bunch of clap trap rhetoric that you can find at any medicine or revival tent show.
His first major decision after his nomination was to choose the chief bloviator, Joe Biden, amongst the many senate bloviators as his VP. Were it not for the melt down on Wall Street, that single decision might have sunk his chances weeks ago.
The real question about Obama is not about liberal or even socialist type domestic policies but very simply whether or not he is a weakling. The Globe shows its citizen of the world concerns by this quote, "While intransigent rogue states can't be finger-wagged into giving up on nuclear weapons, perhaps they can be talked back from the brink." The last weakling talker we had in the presidency was Jimmy Carter and we are still feeling the global ramifications of his incompetence. The Left constantly advocates American appeasement on such things as North Korea and Iran. Will Obama pay bribes and ransom?
Will European style weakness embolden various regimes and militant factions into provocative actions to test the new America that is interested in "improving" our global image? Will the Israelis take unilateral action knowing that an Obama administration will talk softly but can't be trusted to carry a big stick?
How important in the course of world events is that we Americans should be popular?The Europeans may look down their nose at Bush and the United States but will they yearn for him during the next crisis? Pehaps the Europeans are preparing to defend their own ships against pirates in Africa? Do you think those pirates would have ransomed an American ship while Bush was on duty?
So here he is, a machine politician from Chicago with a paper thin resume, soon to join San Francisco Nancy Pelosi, and the gambling industry connected senate majority leader, Harry Reid, on the brink of leading our country. The choices available to us says a lot about the condition of politics in the nation.
In all probability come election day I will pull the lever for Obama, partly from family and party affiliation and primarily because I have never been a real big McCain fan. He is to old, seems to lack real commitment to his own party, compromises on key issues and is in questionable health. McCain Feingold campaign finance reform has been a disaster and his position on immigration was rejected unceremoniously by both parties. Despite all of these liabilities I have not completely ruled out McCain because of one very important reason. That reason is substance. At least McCain has some. He was right on the surge and he was right on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Please help me out here. People I know, like and respect are voting for Obama but when I ask them this one question not one of them can come up with a straight forward answer. What exactly has Barack Obama accomplished on his own in life that would qualify him to be the president of the United States?
Has he run a business or government? Has he authored any legislation? Has he led a movement or fulfilled a commitment of any kind? Has he managed men and women in crisis or in battle? The Globe says, "Obama shows great faith in the possibility of persuasion overseas and in the ingenuity of the American economy." Or how about this magnificent achievement, "the way Obama has run his campaign has been a marvel of sound management." This is the essence of their endorsement, a bunch of clap trap rhetoric that you can find at any medicine or revival tent show.
His first major decision after his nomination was to choose the chief bloviator, Joe Biden, amongst the many senate bloviators as his VP. Were it not for the melt down on Wall Street, that single decision might have sunk his chances weeks ago.
The real question about Obama is not about liberal or even socialist type domestic policies but very simply whether or not he is a weakling. The Globe shows its citizen of the world concerns by this quote, "While intransigent rogue states can't be finger-wagged into giving up on nuclear weapons, perhaps they can be talked back from the brink." The last weakling talker we had in the presidency was Jimmy Carter and we are still feeling the global ramifications of his incompetence. The Left constantly advocates American appeasement on such things as North Korea and Iran. Will Obama pay bribes and ransom?
Will European style weakness embolden various regimes and militant factions into provocative actions to test the new America that is interested in "improving" our global image? Will the Israelis take unilateral action knowing that an Obama administration will talk softly but can't be trusted to carry a big stick?
How important in the course of world events is that we Americans should be popular?The Europeans may look down their nose at Bush and the United States but will they yearn for him during the next crisis? Pehaps the Europeans are preparing to defend their own ships against pirates in Africa? Do you think those pirates would have ransomed an American ship while Bush was on duty?
So here he is, a machine politician from Chicago with a paper thin resume, soon to join San Francisco Nancy Pelosi, and the gambling industry connected senate majority leader, Harry Reid, on the brink of leading our country. The choices available to us says a lot about the condition of politics in the nation.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
No on 1 yes on 2
Question one as it appears on the November ballot would accomplish the following according to the ballot summary:
This proposed law would reduce the state personal income tax rate to 2.65% for all categories of taxable income for the tax year beginning on or after January 1, 2009, and would eliminate the tax for all tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2010. The personal income tax applies to income received or gain realized by individuals and married couples, by estates of deceased persons, by certain trustees and other fiduciaries, by persons who are partners in and receive income from partnerships, by corporate trusts, and by persons who receive income as shareholders of "S corporations" as defined under federal tax law. The proposed law would not affect the tax due on income or gain realized in a tax year beginning before January 1, 2009. The proposed law states that if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect.
Hey what a great idea! It would probably save me and you about $3600 a year on our state income tax. Who is kidding who? The estimates are that this would knock out about 40% of state revenue. Now let's suggest for a moment that that number is inflated by a variety of the sky is falling groups who rely on the state for their income. So let's reduce that figure down to a measly 25%.
The fact of the matter is that a 25% reduction in state income would result in chaos across the commonwealth. Let's not consider the individual human impact of state workers being let go, after all if we don't have any in our family or who are our neighbors or friends why should we care?. Let's instead focus on that thing that cuts closest to home, yes self interest.
What do you think will happen to your property taxes if local aid is cut by 25%? Or how about that new school building you thought the state was going to pick up half the cost of? Even more importantly is the impact on both the local communities and the state's bond rating. It is a difficult enough market to move any new bonds in, can you imagine how much more difficult it would be if the revenue stream necessary to repay the bonds was reduced so dramatically and the Massachusetts state and local ratings were cut two or three notches?
Think for a moment who is likely to bear the brunt of the cuts. Do you think it will be the strongest of the state unions or legislative pay, or judges or lawyers? No, I think it will be the people with the least muscle on Beacon Hill who will bear the brunt of this. Kids and the homeless and the mentally ill don't have connected lobbyists working for them.
Cutting taxes and running an economical government is a great idea. So vote for people who advocate such a stance. Perhaps we should even once again have a 2 party system in Massachusetts. Voting yes for Question 1 is the equivalent of using a chain saw to cure a headache.
Vote yes on Question 2. The summary is as follows:
This proposed law would replace the criminal penalties for possession of one ounce or less of marijuana with a new system of civil penalties, to be enforced by issuing citations, and would exclude information regarding this civil offense from the state's criminal record information system. Offenders age 18 or older would be subject to forfeiture of the marijuana plus a civil penalty of $100. Offenders under the age of 18 would be subject to the same forfeiture and, if they complete a drug awareness program within one year of the offense, the same $100 penalty.
Offenders under 18 and their parents or legal guardian would be notified of the offense and the option for the offender to complete a drug awareness program developed by the state Department of Youth Services. Such programs would include ten hours of community service and at least four hours of instruction or group discussion concerning the use and abuse of marijuana and other drugs and emphasizing early detection and prevention of substance abuse.
The penalty for offenders under 18 who fail to complete such a program within one year could be increased to as much as $1,000, unless the offender showed an inability to pay, an inability to participate in such a program, or the unavailability of such a program. Such an offender's parents could also be held liable for the increased penalty.
Failure by an offender under 17 to complete such a program could also be a basis for a delinquency proceeding. The proposed law would define possession of one ounce or less of marijuana as including possession of one ounce or less of tetrahydrocannibinol ("THC"), or having metabolized products of marijuana or THC in one's body.
Under the proposed law, possessing an ounce or less of marijuana could not be grounds for state or local government entities imposing any other penalty, sanction, or disqualification, such as denying student financial aid, public housing, public financial assistance including unemployment benefits, the right to operate a motor vehicle, or the opportunity to serve as a foster or adoptive parent.
The proposed law would allow local ordinances or bylaws that prohibit the public use of marijuana, and would not affect existing laws, practices, or policies concerning operating a motor vehicle or taking other actions while under the influence of marijuana, unlawful possession of prescription forms of marijuana, or selling, manufacturing, or trafficking in marijuana.The money received from the new civil penalties would go to the city or town where the offense occurred.
Vote yes on 2.
The war on drugs is now and has been a failure. Prohibition has never worked and it is not working now. The crime in drugs is the huge amount of money that is created by the demand for an illegal substance. It is filling jails (mostly with young minority men) and ruining lives and wasting law enforcement money on trying to control a substance that can grow wild in your back yard. Let's have cops spending time trying to catch violent criminals instead of making phony pinches of weed smokers.
The age old argument of marijuana being a gateway drug is nonsense. Ask 50 of your friends what was the first illegal substance they consumed and I bet 95% of them will tell you it was nipping the old man's whiskey in the liquor cabinet at home. If an adult wants to sit at home watching 2001 smoking weed, why should it be the state's business? Other states and other countries have an adult non criminal approach to this issue, why can't we?
This proposed law would reduce the state personal income tax rate to 2.65% for all categories of taxable income for the tax year beginning on or after January 1, 2009, and would eliminate the tax for all tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2010. The personal income tax applies to income received or gain realized by individuals and married couples, by estates of deceased persons, by certain trustees and other fiduciaries, by persons who are partners in and receive income from partnerships, by corporate trusts, and by persons who receive income as shareholders of "S corporations" as defined under federal tax law. The proposed law would not affect the tax due on income or gain realized in a tax year beginning before January 1, 2009. The proposed law states that if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect.
Hey what a great idea! It would probably save me and you about $3600 a year on our state income tax. Who is kidding who? The estimates are that this would knock out about 40% of state revenue. Now let's suggest for a moment that that number is inflated by a variety of the sky is falling groups who rely on the state for their income. So let's reduce that figure down to a measly 25%.
The fact of the matter is that a 25% reduction in state income would result in chaos across the commonwealth. Let's not consider the individual human impact of state workers being let go, after all if we don't have any in our family or who are our neighbors or friends why should we care?. Let's instead focus on that thing that cuts closest to home, yes self interest.
What do you think will happen to your property taxes if local aid is cut by 25%? Or how about that new school building you thought the state was going to pick up half the cost of? Even more importantly is the impact on both the local communities and the state's bond rating. It is a difficult enough market to move any new bonds in, can you imagine how much more difficult it would be if the revenue stream necessary to repay the bonds was reduced so dramatically and the Massachusetts state and local ratings were cut two or three notches?
Think for a moment who is likely to bear the brunt of the cuts. Do you think it will be the strongest of the state unions or legislative pay, or judges or lawyers? No, I think it will be the people with the least muscle on Beacon Hill who will bear the brunt of this. Kids and the homeless and the mentally ill don't have connected lobbyists working for them.
Cutting taxes and running an economical government is a great idea. So vote for people who advocate such a stance. Perhaps we should even once again have a 2 party system in Massachusetts. Voting yes for Question 1 is the equivalent of using a chain saw to cure a headache.
Vote yes on Question 2. The summary is as follows:
This proposed law would replace the criminal penalties for possession of one ounce or less of marijuana with a new system of civil penalties, to be enforced by issuing citations, and would exclude information regarding this civil offense from the state's criminal record information system. Offenders age 18 or older would be subject to forfeiture of the marijuana plus a civil penalty of $100. Offenders under the age of 18 would be subject to the same forfeiture and, if they complete a drug awareness program within one year of the offense, the same $100 penalty.
Offenders under 18 and their parents or legal guardian would be notified of the offense and the option for the offender to complete a drug awareness program developed by the state Department of Youth Services. Such programs would include ten hours of community service and at least four hours of instruction or group discussion concerning the use and abuse of marijuana and other drugs and emphasizing early detection and prevention of substance abuse.
The penalty for offenders under 18 who fail to complete such a program within one year could be increased to as much as $1,000, unless the offender showed an inability to pay, an inability to participate in such a program, or the unavailability of such a program. Such an offender's parents could also be held liable for the increased penalty.
Failure by an offender under 17 to complete such a program could also be a basis for a delinquency proceeding. The proposed law would define possession of one ounce or less of marijuana as including possession of one ounce or less of tetrahydrocannibinol ("THC"), or having metabolized products of marijuana or THC in one's body.
Under the proposed law, possessing an ounce or less of marijuana could not be grounds for state or local government entities imposing any other penalty, sanction, or disqualification, such as denying student financial aid, public housing, public financial assistance including unemployment benefits, the right to operate a motor vehicle, or the opportunity to serve as a foster or adoptive parent.
The proposed law would allow local ordinances or bylaws that prohibit the public use of marijuana, and would not affect existing laws, practices, or policies concerning operating a motor vehicle or taking other actions while under the influence of marijuana, unlawful possession of prescription forms of marijuana, or selling, manufacturing, or trafficking in marijuana.The money received from the new civil penalties would go to the city or town where the offense occurred.
Vote yes on 2.
The war on drugs is now and has been a failure. Prohibition has never worked and it is not working now. The crime in drugs is the huge amount of money that is created by the demand for an illegal substance. It is filling jails (mostly with young minority men) and ruining lives and wasting law enforcement money on trying to control a substance that can grow wild in your back yard. Let's have cops spending time trying to catch violent criminals instead of making phony pinches of weed smokers.
The age old argument of marijuana being a gateway drug is nonsense. Ask 50 of your friends what was the first illegal substance they consumed and I bet 95% of them will tell you it was nipping the old man's whiskey in the liquor cabinet at home. If an adult wants to sit at home watching 2001 smoking weed, why should it be the state's business? Other states and other countries have an adult non criminal approach to this issue, why can't we?
Saturday, October 04, 2008
The following resolution was passed overwhelmingly by the Burlington town meeting this past Wednesday night. It is significant in that it might mark a turning point in the town's attitude toward the City of Boston regarding its trusteeship of the Cummings property and the Friends of Mary Cummings Park's complaint regarding that trusteeship.
It needn't have arrived at town meeting had the board of selectmen taken a leadership role. Instead the board passed on any support of the complaint under the guise of town counsel opining that the town could be subject to legal liability if the board supported the complaint. This stance is of course nonsense and was completely debunked during the meeting. No amount of obfuscation on the subject by counsel on Wednesday could give the selectmen cover.
The leadership of the board wanted a reason to ignore the issue and continue with a 25 year old failed policy of appeasing Boston and they looked to counsel to provide that cover with a verbal opinion. The fact the selectmen remained silent during the discussion Wednesday further demonstrated their complete lack of understanding of the subject matter.
The matter now rests in the hands of Attorney General Coakley and that fact represents both the problem and the potential solution, since this is only a complaint by the Friends of Mary Cummings to the AG, it is not litigation in front of the courts
Under her authority as AG, she can order an investigation into Boston's behaviour under the public charities division, however she can also choose to completely ignore the complaint. Considering the severity of the items in the complaint you would think this impossible but guess again. Every attorney general of the commonwealth aspires to be the governor. I imagine Coakley has the same ambitions as her predecessors. There are clearly more votes to be had in Boston than in Burlington or Woburn. Attorney General Coakley's response to this problem will speak a great deal about her politics or her integrity.
Attorney General Martha Coakley
Massachusetts’s Attorney General Office
One Ashburton Place
Boston, Mass. 02108
Public Charities Division
Attorney General Coakley,
The following is a resolution of the Burlington Town Meeting in support of the complaint filed by the Friends of Mary Cummings Park.
Where as; Mary P.C. Cummings left the property known as Babylon Hill “To hold and keep the same forever open as a public pleasure ground, and to maintain and care for the same in a suitable manner in accordance with that purpose.”
Where as: Mrs. Cummings left substantial assets for the purposes of meeting the terms of her bequest.
Where as: Mrs. Cummings left a successor in the event that “said City of Boston shall decline or fail to accept said real estate in Woburn and Burlington for the purposes aforesaid,”
Where as: The City of Boston has spent trust assets for the purposes of protecting commercial development rights, appraisals and attorney’s fees outside of the specific instructions of the trust.
Where as: The City of Boston has received specific legal advice on how to position the trust property as unable to meet the wishes of the donor.
Where as: The City of Boston has taken specific action to prevent access to the park.
Now comes the Burlington Town Meeting to request that you look favorably upon the complaint of the Friends of Mary Cummings Park under authority granted to you in MGL c12 Paragraph 8H, to investigate thoroughly how this trust is being managed under the terms of the donor’s bequest.
It needn't have arrived at town meeting had the board of selectmen taken a leadership role. Instead the board passed on any support of the complaint under the guise of town counsel opining that the town could be subject to legal liability if the board supported the complaint. This stance is of course nonsense and was completely debunked during the meeting. No amount of obfuscation on the subject by counsel on Wednesday could give the selectmen cover.
The leadership of the board wanted a reason to ignore the issue and continue with a 25 year old failed policy of appeasing Boston and they looked to counsel to provide that cover with a verbal opinion. The fact the selectmen remained silent during the discussion Wednesday further demonstrated their complete lack of understanding of the subject matter.
The matter now rests in the hands of Attorney General Coakley and that fact represents both the problem and the potential solution, since this is only a complaint by the Friends of Mary Cummings to the AG, it is not litigation in front of the courts
Under her authority as AG, she can order an investigation into Boston's behaviour under the public charities division, however she can also choose to completely ignore the complaint. Considering the severity of the items in the complaint you would think this impossible but guess again. Every attorney general of the commonwealth aspires to be the governor. I imagine Coakley has the same ambitions as her predecessors. There are clearly more votes to be had in Boston than in Burlington or Woburn. Attorney General Coakley's response to this problem will speak a great deal about her politics or her integrity.
Attorney General Martha Coakley
Massachusetts’s Attorney General Office
One Ashburton Place
Boston, Mass. 02108
Public Charities Division
Attorney General Coakley,
The following is a resolution of the Burlington Town Meeting in support of the complaint filed by the Friends of Mary Cummings Park.
Where as; Mary P.C. Cummings left the property known as Babylon Hill “To hold and keep the same forever open as a public pleasure ground, and to maintain and care for the same in a suitable manner in accordance with that purpose.”
Where as: Mrs. Cummings left substantial assets for the purposes of meeting the terms of her bequest.
Where as: Mrs. Cummings left a successor in the event that “said City of Boston shall decline or fail to accept said real estate in Woburn and Burlington for the purposes aforesaid,”
Where as: The City of Boston has spent trust assets for the purposes of protecting commercial development rights, appraisals and attorney’s fees outside of the specific instructions of the trust.
Where as: The City of Boston has received specific legal advice on how to position the trust property as unable to meet the wishes of the donor.
Where as: The City of Boston has taken specific action to prevent access to the park.
Now comes the Burlington Town Meeting to request that you look favorably upon the complaint of the Friends of Mary Cummings Park under authority granted to you in MGL c12 Paragraph 8H, to investigate thoroughly how this trust is being managed under the terms of the donor’s bequest.
Media help only hurts Obama
Barack Obama is doing quite well in this election without the need for help from the media. If the papers and networks just play it straight and focus on the facts it should be enough for Obama to win on the basis of simply saying vote for me because I am not them. The Republicans have held the white house for 8 years and it is time to give someone else a try who isn't them.
How the media is straying from the playing field is very simply demonstrated by their fixation with trying to make the Republican VP nominee look like a dope that doesn't belong on the ticket, is an incoherent airhead, is guilty of getting a free facial, zoning special treatment, is hateful about a brother in law who tasered his son and somehow is a radical ANTI feminist who is likely to endanger every woman in America.
All this does is to so lower expectations, so that when Sarah Palin does utter a complete sentence it is considered a substantial victory for her. Not only does it lift Palin in the eyes of the voter but it also makes a fair minded person wonder why opposition figures are not held to the same standard. As an example is Sen. Biden's recent pronouncement regarding President Roosevelt addressing the nation on television in 1929 regarding the Great Depression. Perhaps Katie Couric might have asked Joe what periodical he read that in?
This is just about as stupid a comment that a 30 plus year member of the senate could possibly utter yet it got no where near the coverage, laughter or general derision in the press that Palin's edited "seeing Russia from her house" comment got. A fair minded person need only read the transcript of the interview to know that the network edited this for maximum embarrassment.
The continued focus on Palin's credentials again makes a fair minded person wonder why the New York Times and various network anchors think that a sitting governor and former mayor has less management and governing capabilities as vice presidential material than a freshman senator with no governing experience has to be presidential material. They continually bring home the point that Palin might be only a heartbeat away from the presidency but are not one bit concerned that a complete neophyte on the Democratic side WOULD be the president.
Gov. Palin has responsibility for approximately a 15 billion dollar budget and ten thousand plus employees. This is not an insignificant piece of information on Palin's resume and in fact can't be matched by any of the other three candidates. It might be useful to compare the number of presidents elected directly from the senate versus the number of governors elected directly from their state capitols to the nations capitol.
The poll results have not yet shown the impact of the Biden/Palin debate on Thursday night. What can be deduced immediately is that by merely holding her own against Biden she has plainly demonstrated that the rumored media elite disdain for a western frontier woman is very real. If the media continues to portray Palin in a way that is in direct contrast to what American voters hear for themselves when she speaks directly to them, it may provide a voter backlash that McCain is so desperately in need of.
How the media is straying from the playing field is very simply demonstrated by their fixation with trying to make the Republican VP nominee look like a dope that doesn't belong on the ticket, is an incoherent airhead, is guilty of getting a free facial, zoning special treatment, is hateful about a brother in law who tasered his son and somehow is a radical ANTI feminist who is likely to endanger every woman in America.
All this does is to so lower expectations, so that when Sarah Palin does utter a complete sentence it is considered a substantial victory for her. Not only does it lift Palin in the eyes of the voter but it also makes a fair minded person wonder why opposition figures are not held to the same standard. As an example is Sen. Biden's recent pronouncement regarding President Roosevelt addressing the nation on television in 1929 regarding the Great Depression. Perhaps Katie Couric might have asked Joe what periodical he read that in?
This is just about as stupid a comment that a 30 plus year member of the senate could possibly utter yet it got no where near the coverage, laughter or general derision in the press that Palin's edited "seeing Russia from her house" comment got. A fair minded person need only read the transcript of the interview to know that the network edited this for maximum embarrassment.
The continued focus on Palin's credentials again makes a fair minded person wonder why the New York Times and various network anchors think that a sitting governor and former mayor has less management and governing capabilities as vice presidential material than a freshman senator with no governing experience has to be presidential material. They continually bring home the point that Palin might be only a heartbeat away from the presidency but are not one bit concerned that a complete neophyte on the Democratic side WOULD be the president.
Gov. Palin has responsibility for approximately a 15 billion dollar budget and ten thousand plus employees. This is not an insignificant piece of information on Palin's resume and in fact can't be matched by any of the other three candidates. It might be useful to compare the number of presidents elected directly from the senate versus the number of governors elected directly from their state capitols to the nations capitol.
The poll results have not yet shown the impact of the Biden/Palin debate on Thursday night. What can be deduced immediately is that by merely holding her own against Biden she has plainly demonstrated that the rumored media elite disdain for a western frontier woman is very real. If the media continues to portray Palin in a way that is in direct contrast to what American voters hear for themselves when she speaks directly to them, it may provide a voter backlash that McCain is so desperately in need of.
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