YOUTUBERS EXPOSING BLACK FAMILY DRAMA FOR PROFITS

YOUTUBERS EXPOSING BLACK FAMILY DRAMA FOR PROFITS:

YOUTUBE FAMILY DRAMA HAS REPLACED SOAP OPERA SHOWS.

CHILDREN OF THESE YOUTUBERS WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR PARENTS' GREED.

"Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are."
Proverbs 26:4


Sources: YouTube, Google


Many Black women have discovered a new LEGAL way to earn money to help support their families.

Posting home videos on YouTube and making money from ads which play on those videos has provided a lucrative opportunity for Black mothers to remain at home while still bringing home the bacon.

The most lucrative YouTube videos within the Black community appear to be those filled with Ghetto drama from their own families.

So uploading videos of Black husbands and wives fighting is worth big bucks from YouTube and Google.

Can you say watching Ratchet videos on YouTube while exposing family drama has replaced watching Soap Operas on television??

Sounds great right?

Sounds too good to be true right?

Guess what?

It is true however there are caveats.

One day when Ratchet, Ghetto YouTube channels from these Black women are no longer in high demand, will these Women long term suffer consequences by not being able to become gainfully employed?

One day when Ratchet, Ghetto YouTube channels from these Black women are no longer in high demand, will the Children of these Women suffer consequences by not being able to be accepted to good colleges?

At what future risk are these Black Women willing to pay just to earn a lucrative YouTube check today?

I can hear the sounds of REGRET and Ruined REPUTATIONS fast approaching.

COLORADO Becomes Marijuana Capital Of America!......State Expects Millions Each Year In Sales Tax Revenue!

#ColoradoPOT


RECREATIONAL POT IS NOW LEGAL IN COLORADO

Effective Immediately!

It is now LEGAL to buy Recreational Marijuana in COLORADO.

The State is expected to generate Millions each year from LEGAL Sales of POT.

The Lines Wednesday morning were Outrageous!

Of course due to COLORADO State Regulations, only RICH people can actually Afford to become LEGAL POT DEALERS but........

At least You won't be Arrested for Indulging.

"Colorado's Recreational Marijuana Stores Make History"


Iraq war veteran Sean Azzariti described his purchase of recreational marijuana -- legally -- as a historic moment Wednesday.

"It's huge," he said at a marijuana store along a light industrial corridor outside downtown Denver. "It hasn't even sunk in how big this is yet."

Indeed, before the 3D Cannabis Center opened at 8 a.m. MT, more than 100 people were waiting in snowfall and cold under gray skies to be the next buyers of recreational pot under a landmark law voters approved in 2012. The dispensary was one of a handful that opened to lines of waiting people on New Year's Day, with scores more expected statewide in coming months.

Azzariti was selected to be the first buyer at the 3D Cannabis Center because he was a Marine from 2000 to 2006 who now suffers post-traumatic stress disorder after two tours in Iraq. He can't obtain medical marijuana in Colorado because PTSD isn't a qualifying condition for that treatment, he said.

"This is what we worked so hard for the last few years," he said of the voter-approved constitutional amendment that led Colorado to become the first state in the nation to open recreational pot stores to anyone age 21 and older. "It's mind-blowing."

Azzariti, 32, bought an eighth of an ounce of pot, plus chocolate truffles laced with marijuana. Those treats are called "edibles" at the store.

The price: $59.50.

The marijuana alleviates the anxiety and stress that come from PTSD, he said, adding that he'll smoke the pot Wednesday evening.

At several recreational weed stores, buyers waited in line for three or four hours to be a part of opening-day history. Despite the hundreds of people queuing on public sidewalks, no significant problems emerged Wednesday, Denver officials said.

"I want to thank the businesses and consumers alike for acting responsibly and with great accountability today," Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock said in a statement. "Denver is a progressive city, a vibrant city, and it's incumbent on all of us to continue getting this right."

Long lines

Even three hours after the stores opened, one downtown Denver dispensary had a line of about 100 people outside the front door to the corner. The snow had stopped falling by then, and the gray skies were clearing to blue.

While patrons -- young and the old, men and women -- waited patiently in line, the demographic at the downtown dispensary tilted more toward 20- and 30-somethings.

When many buyers emerged from the store and nudged through the line, they raised their bags of newly purchased pot above their heads.

People waiting on the sidewalk cheered them.

Even though recreational weed is now legal, some purchasers declined to disclose their last names.

One woman, Dee, who didn't want to use her surname, said she waited in line for almost three hours to buy her cannabis. She and a male companion bought a small amount, she said, just to commemorate the occasion.

"We voted for it, and now it's here," Dee said of the recreational marijuana law. "We just went in and celebrated the new law. It's a new day."

She didn't mind the long wait at the LoDo's Dispensary. "Everybody is cool and mellow and nice. So it's all good," she said.

Some motorists passing the pot shop honked and cheered the queue of buyers, who whooped in return.

One motorist, however, shouted a disparaging remark about the "potheads," and the crowd muttered raspberries in response.

Buyers whiled away the hours in line by talking aloud about the benefits of marijuana as a remedy for hangovers, headaches, sleeplessness and low appetite.

Then a young woman in a passing SUV slowed and interrupted them by asking, "What's going on, guys?"

"Legal pot sale!" a man in line shouted.

"Oh, I need an eighth!" the young woman shouted back excitedly. The car drove on.

In fact, around 11:30 a.m. MT, Don Andrews, whose family owns and runs the dispensary, announced to the waiting people on the sidewalk that he was being forced to limit sales to an eighth of an ounce to each person, though under the new state law, a resident can buy up to an ounce.

The dispensary will close at 7 p.m. MT, but Andrews said he may have to start turning people away at 4 p.m. The line had gone out the front door, down the street and around the corner by 2 p.m. MT, when more than 400 people had made purchases.

In all, Andrews counted buyers from several states and countries. Buyers showed IDs from Vermont, Arizona, Georgia, Oregon, Wyoming, Louisiana -- and even Alaska and Hawaii. Other prospective weed buyers came from Canada, Australia and Italy, though the Italian man, 21, walked away because he had to catch a bus for his tour of America.

South of downtown, the Evergreen Apothecary was encountering the same phenomenon: 700 people in line took numbers, but employees said they might not be able to serve all of them by the close of business.

The atmosphere at the dispensaries was clearly celebratory and cheerful. For example, about 10 miles outside of downtown, one man said he had waited in the snow since 2:30 a.m. for the Medicine Man dispensary to open at 8 a.m.

When asked how he felt after making the first sale there, he responded: "I'll feel better in an hour."

Applauding, criticizing the new law

Even before the weed went on sale, enthusiasts were anticipating the end of an era.

"Prohibition is over," blared a flier for New Year's Eve festivities at Casselman's Bar in Denver. "Celebrate Cannabis freedom in style."

As many as 30 stores throughout Colorado will sell recreational weed. Of the estimated 30 stores, 18 are in Denver.

"With Washington state next to implement marijuana legalization and other states strongly considering enacting similar laws, we believe this marks the beginning of the end of the nation's decades-long war on marijuana and its harmful human and fiscal toll," Ezekiel Edwards, a director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a prepared statement.

But not everyone was applauding.

"Legalization -- with all of the American-style promotion that will accompany it -- is the last thing people in recovery, parents, communities -- and even our nation -- need right now," Smart Approaches to Marijuana said on its website.

A total of 136 stores received state licenses last week, but most apparently had not obtained approval yet from their local governments to open on January 1.

In 2012, Colorado voters approved the sale of recreational marijuana, as did voters in Washington state. But Colorado is the first to have the pot shops up and running under regulations recently established by state and local governments. Colorado voters' approval in effect amended the state's constitution to allow for the retail sale of recreational pot. The state already allows medical marijuana.

Limits to marijuana consumption

Not all of the state is participating in the new law. A community can decide not to allow the shops, and in fact, most of the state geographically hasn't, including communities such as Greeley and Colorado Springs.

Proponents of the new law were dealt a setback last week when Denver and state officials threatened to shut down a private party at a dance club scheduled for January 1 celebrating the end of the prohibition against cannabis -- an event billed as "Cannabition." The organizers canceled the party because officials said it would violate a Denver ordinance prohibiting the public consumption of marijuana.

Cannabis can only be smoked on private property with the owner's permission.

Under the new state law, residents are now able to buy marijuana like alcohol. The cannabis purchase is limited to an ounce, which is substantial enough to cost about $200 or more. People from out of state can buy up to a quarter-ounce.

In a vivid example of how recreational pot is a new reality for the state, Denver officials posted public signs in the tourist-populated corridor known as the 16th Street Mall. The street signs read, "Know the Law about Marijuana Use in Denver."

"You must be 21 or older to have or use retail marijuana," says one bulletin on the sign. But further below it, the sign warns readers that "it is illegal to use, display or transfer marijuana on the 16th Street Mall."

One of Colorado's main media outlets, The Denver Post, has even devoted a website to the history-making moment and its ongoing impact.

"The culture of cannabis, that's what we're here to talk about," says the newspaper's "The Cannabist" page. "As marijuana's coming-out continues, we'll report journalistically from our homebase in Denver, Colo. -- the site of recreational marijuana's first legal sale in the modern world on Jan. 1, 2014."

This week, Denver International Airport authorities banned all marijuana on the airport grounds. Medical marijuana had been legal to bring to the airport as long as it didn't go through security checkpoints, said airport spokeswoman Stacey Stegman.

But a total ban was implemented to avoid confusion as the recreational pot law rolls out, she said. Officials are concerned that a large influx of people may take marijuana to the airport and transport it across state lines.

So if a visitor brings marijuana to the airport and leaves it in the car to pick up a relative at the terminal, that visitor will be breaking the law and could face a fine of up to $999, Stegman said.

Colorado becomes the first place in the world where marijuana will be regulated from seed to sale. Pot is the third most popular recreational drug in America, after alcohol and tobacco, according to the marijuana reform group NORML.


Sources: AP, CNN

Apple Pockets Billions In Profits & Dividends Due To China's Cheap Labor: Manufacturing Jobs Shipped Overseas

Apple announces dividend and stock buyback

Apple on Monday announced plans for much of the $97.6 billion in cash it has accumulated from massive iPod, iPhone, iPad and Macintosh sales.
The company said it would begin giving shareholders a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime its fiscal fourth quarter, which begins in July. Apple last offered a dividend in 1995.

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) will also buy back $10 billion of its own shares over three years, beginning in October.

"We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure," Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said in a prepared statement.

"Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program," he added.

Stock repurchases generally help companies inflate their earnings per share because it reduces the number of shares outstanding. But profit growth has rarely been a problem for Apple, which routinely blows past Wall Street analysts' quarterly earnings forecasts.

Apple said the share buybacks will help stave off earnings-per-share dilution from future employee stock grants and purchase programs.

The company said it expects the dividend to cost the company $2.5 billion per quarter, making it one of the largest dividend payers in the United States. Combined with the repurchase program, Apple said it will likely utilize $45 billion of its domestic cash through 2015.

It's significant that Apple is using its domestic cash, rather than the much heftier stockpiles it holds overseas, because foreign cash would be subject to a sizable "repatriation tax" if brought back into the United States. Cook said the company didn't want to pay that tax.

Shares of Apple rose just less than 3% to close at an all-time high of $601.10.
Growth at Apple has not been a problem: The company is on pace to become the largest technology company in the world by revenue, and during the holiday season it posted the second-most profitable quarter by any corporation in U.S. history.

Nevertheless, Apple is actively looking for new investors. Some fund managers have stopped buying shares as Apple's stock price has soared. But many funds require a dividend from the stocks they invest in, so they have had to stay away from Apple.

"Investors have been wresting with the question of, 'Who is left to buy the stock?'" said Alex Gauna, tech analyst at JMP Securities.

Cook said he hopes the dividend will open up Apple's stock to a new investor base.
Apple's dividend yield -- the percentage of a company's share price that it pays out in annual dividends -- is currently 1.8%.

That's higher than the dividend yields of other technology giants, such as IBM (IBM, Fortune 500), Cisco (CSCO, Fortune 500) and Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500), but it's lower than the yields of more direct rivals like Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500).

Apple's dividend yield is nearly twice the average for the tech companies in the S&P 500, but a bit less than the 2.1% average for the overall S&P 500.




Cheap Labor, Taxes, Location: Why Apple Doesn't Build Products in the U.S.


People in the automobile industry are buzzing over that New York Times article about Apple, which gave a detailed look at why it builds its products in China. Attracting manufacturing is a huge topic in the Midwest, where Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and other states are doing everything they can think of to land investments.

Dustin Dwyer at our Changing Gears public media project wanted to know why Apple finds China so much more attractive than America. So, he spoke with Jeffrey Liker, the University of Michigan professor and author of the best-selling series of books on Toyota, for a Midwestern take.

Liker doesn’t buy the claim that U.S. workers don’t have the skills or the flexibility to make Apple products. Any manufacturer opening a new plant has to do some training, he says.


He gave three main reasons why he believes Apple won’t build in America:


1) Cheap labor.

Apple executives may not want to admit it, but Liker says one of the biggest advantages of going overseas is that workers there are much, much cheaper. This is really an obvious reason, and we all know it. But it’s worth remembering whenever someone tries to claim that the actual reason is because our workers don’t have the right skills. “Right now is the worst time to make that statement since the recession has put so many people out of work,” Liker says. “There are all kinds of skilled workers right now.”


2) Taxes.

Liker says another big reason Apple and other manufacturers do work in Asia is because taxes are cheaper there. Usually, if a company makes profits from something built overseas, they have to pay American taxes when they “repatriate” those profits back to their headquarters here. But if a company spends money at lots of overseas factories, it just re-invests the profits over there, and it never pays the higher tax. Liker estimates this could make a 20-30 percent difference in profits for a company like Apple.


3) They’re there because they’re there.

Once the decision to make products overseas has been made, it becomes incredibly difficult to reverse, Liker says. “Apple is not a manufacturing company,” he says. “They’re a design and marketing company.” All of Apple’s manufacturing plants in Asia are owned by suppliers, not by Apple. If Apple executives suddenly decided they wanted their products built in the U.S., they’d have to invest billions of dollars in new factories. In China, the infrastructure is already there. “They made that decision decades ago,” Liker says. “I don’t think they’re revisiting it.”

There’s another wrinkle to this discussion that Liker says is worth mentioning. Right now, he says China actually has a far greater shortage of skilled workers than the U.S. Demand for workers in China is so high that factories there have trouble holding on to people. Liker says turnover rates of 20-30 percent are common in Chinese factories.

So, according to Liker, the truth is the exact opposite of what Apple claims.


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Sources: ABC News, Forbes, Fox Conn, Youtube, Google Maps

Private Prison Corporations Offering State Officials CA$H To Manage State Prisons

Private Prison Corporation Offers Cash In Exchange For State Prisons

As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact.

Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for "challenging corrections budgets." In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Huffington Post.

The move reflects a significant shift in strategy for the private prison industry, which until now has expanded by building prisons of its own or managing state-controlled prisons. It also represents an unprecedented bid for more control of state prison systems.

Corrections Corporation has been a swiftly growing business, with revenues expanding more than fivefold since the mid-1990s. The company capitalized on the expansion of state prison systems in the '80s and '90s at the height of the so-called 'war on drugs,' contracting with state governments to build or manage new prisons to house an influx of drug offenders. During the past 10 years, it has found new opportunity in the business of locking up undocumented immigrants, as the federal government has contracted with private companies in an aggressive immigrant-detention campaign.

And Corrections Corporation's offer of $250 million toward purchasing existing state prisons is yet another avenue for potential growth. The company has billed the "corrections investment initiative" as a convenient option for states in need of fresh revenue streams: The state benefits from a one-time infusion of cash, while the prison corporation wins a new long-term contract. In addition, supporters of prison privatization have argued that states can achieve cost savings through outsourcing, as prison corporations give fewer benefits to employees.

"We believe this comes at a timely and helpful juncture and hope you will share our belief in the benefits of the purchase-and-manage model," reads the letter from Harley Lappin, CCA's chief corrections officer, who was a former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Ohio sold off one of its largest prisons to Corrections Corporation last year as a way to plug holes in its budget, and government officials estimate that outsourcing the prison could save the state $3 million annually. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) proposed putting three state prisons on the block last year to generate one-time revenue, but he failed to persuade state lawmakers to endorse the plan.

Others have raised serious doubts about the wisdom of selling off and privatizing state prisons, which could give private corporations substantially more bargaining power in long-term contracts with states. Prison management contracts can be canceled or re-bid frequently, with the state still retaining ownership of the prison as an asset. But if a private company owns the prison, the state would have fewer options if it wanted to cut ties. Any alternatives for housing prisoners would likely cost more, such as building a new prison from scratch or finding another company to take in its inmates.

A series of studies has also cast doubt on the private prison industry's main selling point: efficiency. Research across numerous states has shown that the promised savings from private prisons can be illusory at best. Cost comparisons often fail to account for extra administrative expenses borne by the state, or differences in health care costs for sickly inmates who normally remain in state supervision.

What's more, many civil liberties advocates question why a profit motive should be tied to incarceration policies, raising concerns that cutting costs could have an adverse effect on public safety. In 1998, six prisoners, including five convicted murderers, escaped from a Corrections Corporation prison in Youngstown, Ohio, putting the company in the national spotlight amid findings of inept supervision by guards and poor training by prison officials.

"It's a real gamble for states to say, 'Gee, we're going to save a lot of money this way,'" said Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters Ohio, which did several studies analyzing Ohio's sale of a state prison to Corrections Corporation of America. "The idea that we should do this because we need money on a one-time basis seems like awfully short-term thinking. If we want to talk about what our needs are for the budget, and what our needs are for housing prisoners, let's look at those on a long-term basis and see what the best decisions are."

A spokesman for Corrections Corporation of America, Steve Owen, said the company's contracts with any government agency are completely transparent. He pointed out that in many states, including Ohio, governments require demonstrated cost savings of 5 percent or more to enter into a contract with a private operator.

"There has to be a cost savings, and they have to monitor that over time, so I think that speaks for itself," Owen said. "At the end of the day, if we can't provide the scope of services and the quality of services and do it at whatever the cost savings that are required, they're not going to continue to do business with us."

But estimated savings often come down to how those calculations are made, and outside researchers have questioned the numbers. In Arizona, for example, a 2010 report from the state's auditor general showed that it cost the state more to house prisoners in private facilities than public prisons after factoring in administrative costs and adjusting for the types of medical care provided to less healthy inmates who tended to be housed in public facilities. And in Florida, where lawmakers this week could decide whether to privatize more than two dozen state prisons, reports about private prisons from the state's legislative research office note, "cost savings estimates are subject to caveats and should be evaluated cautiously."

EXPANDING IN TIGHT TIMES

In recent years, Corrections Corporation of America has made it clear that it sees opportunity in the new era of state budget crises. During earnings calls with investors, company executives have pointed out that the Great Recession has brought renewed interest in privatization.

"We continue to believe we are very well-positioned in a market that, despite the economic pressures faced by our customers, has provided healthy financial performance," Corrections Corporation chief executive Damon Hininger said in the company earnings call last November. "Indeed, it is because of these pressures, which lead to severe capital constraints and the need to avoid increasing their pension liabilities, that we believe our value proposition to customers is getting stronger."

The letter sent last month to 48 states was billed on the example of Ohio, which last year sold a prison near the shore of Lake Erie to Corrections Corporation for $72.7 million.

"We want to build on that success and provide our existing or prospective government partners with access to the same opportunity," the letter said.

Those who follow the private corrections industry said the purchasing approach gives prison companies a new option for growth. Although U.S. prison populations have swelled to enormous proportions, growing more than sevenfold since the mid-1970s, growth has slowed and populations are expected to decline in many states.

"You've not seen inmate populations at the state level grow for the last two years," said Kevin Campbell, a senior research analyst who follows the corrections industry at Avondale Partners, an investment firm. "So if you as an industry are going to continue to grow, then you have to think, 'How do we take shares away from the public sector to the private sector?'"

The outright ownership of a prison generally makes state contracts more beneficial to a private operator such as Corrections Corporation of America, Campbell said. If a state owns a prison and contracts it out, the pricing tends to be more competitive, as numerous companies would be jockeying for the management job.

"That just keeps a lid on how profitable a management contract can be," Campbell said. "That's why their preference would be to own versus just straight-out manage a contract."

Yet critics point to inherent problems in such long-term contracts, particularly provisions that require a prison to be 90 percent full throughout the life of an agreement. In Ohio, for example, contractors are guaranteed payment at the 90 percent rate "regardless of the actual number of inmates at the institution at that time."

The mandate to keep prisons full raises questions about cost efficiency -- what if there aren't enough inmates? -- but it also presents a moral question about maintaining a constant supply of new prisoners.

"It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Shakyra Diaz, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. "In order to have it at 90 percent, you need to be able to make criminals to fill it at 90 percent."

Corrections Corporation's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission clearly point out that business success is tied to a status quo in criminal justice policy.

"The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws," the company's most recent annual filing noted. "For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them."

QUESTIONS ABOUT EFFICIENCY

Up until last year, the sale of a state prison to a private company was unprecedented. State and local governments have considered auctioning off all sorts of public property during the economic downturn, including even the state capitol building in Arizona.

Last year, the idea of selling prisons gained traction in both Louisiana and Ohio, as states became hungry for quick fixes to budget shortfalls. Gov. Jindal's plan in Louisiana came up short.

Legislators and state bureaucrats did not buy the idea of balancing a budget with one-time revenues from a prison sale. Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy compared the strategy to "a junkie selling the television set and radio to generate money for his next fix."

When Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) took office last year, he proposed selling off five state prisons as part of a broader plan to privatize state government.

By the time Ohio received proposals last summer from private prison companies, only one offer was deemed worthy: the $72.7 million sale of the Lake Erie Correctional Facility. In a conference call with investors last fall, Hininger, the Corrections Corporation CEO, trumpeted the Ohio deal, noting, "Ohio has been a targeted state for CCA for several years."

Kasich's appointed chief for state prisons, Gary Mohr, previously served as a managing director at Corrections Corporation of America before assuming his government position last year. And Kasich's former chief of staff when he was a congressman, Donald Thibaut, now works as a lobbyist in Ohio for Corrections Corporation of America.

The state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has pointed out that Mohr took the "extraordinary step of completely removing himself from this process," and did not have any part in examining the proposals for prison privatization last year.

State public policy groups have questioned how the sale of the Lake Erie prison shook out for taxpayers.

State officials have argued that selling and outsourcing the prison will generate $3 million in cost savings each year. But a report from Policy Matters Ohio calculated that selling the Lake Erie prison would actually cost more in the long term than if the state continued to own the property and pay off the construction bonds. That's because the state has to pay Corrections Corporation of America a $3.8 million annual ownership fee for housing state prisoners, in addition to the prisoner per-diem costs laid out in the contract.

According to the report, the prison sale would cost taxpayers $11 million more over the next 20 years than if the state would have continued to own the prison.

"A closer look shows that this deal has the potential to be a net loser for taxpayers right off the bat," the report notes.

Annette Chambers-Smith, the deputy director of administration at Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the calculations in the group's report were "rudimentary." She said the calculation did not account for costs the state might have for capital improvements at the prison, and did not note the additional property taxes that will come from private ownership of the facility.

"In our case we were able to not only plug the hole in the budget, but then turn around and have property taxes," she said.

Just as cost concerns were raised in other states, groups in Ohio have questioned how much money is actually being saved by privatizing prison operations. Policy Matters Ohio said it found significant problems with the way the state calculated private prison "savings" in its report.

For example, to compare the costs at a privately run prison to a state prison, the state's department of corrections had to create a hypothetical state-run prison that would be the same size as a privately managed prison. The hypothetical example, however, contained central office and administrative staff costs that were not figured in for the private prison, making the state prison appear more costly, Policy Matters Ohio found.

In reality, the state is tasked with overseeing and administering private prisons in the correctional system -- creating an additional cost -- even if state employees aren't staffing the prisons.

Chambers-Smith, of the Ohio corrections department, acknowledged there had been inconsistencies with the state's cost calculations in the past. But beginning in 2010, she said the department has revised calculations to directly compare each area of service -- health care, utility costs, staffing.

"They don't get to cherry-pick their inmates," she said. "They have the exact same inmates there who were there when it was publicly operated."

At this point, it's unclear how many states will be interested in selling off prisons. Arizona, New Hampshire and Florida are considering privatizing the management of state prisons, but so far none have specifically broached the topic of a sale.

State corrections officials who were contacted in California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Montana, Georgia, Texas, Illinois and New York all said they were not considering such prison sales at this time. In Illinois and New York, laws prohibit state inmates from being housed in private prisons, according to corrections officials.


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Sources: AOL, Huffington Post, PBS, Youtube, Google Maps

For-Proft College Student Loan Defaults Skyrocket! Scams! Cosmetology Schools Too!

Student Loan Defaults Reach Highest Level In More Than A Decade

Students at for-profit colleges are more than twice as likely to default on federal loans as their peers at public institutions, according to new data released Monday by the Department of Education that also shows the highest percentage of students defaulting on loans in more than a decade.

The overall student loan default rate increased from 7 percent last year to 8.8 percent -- the highest rate since the government released similar data in 1999. An outsized share of that increase came from the for-profit college sector, which had both the highest percentage of defaults and the greatest increase in defaults, compared to public universities and private nonprofit schools.

Defaults at for-profit schools jumped from 11.6 percent to 15 percent this year, as opposed to an increase of 6 percent to 7.2 percent at public institutions and 4 percent to 4.6 percent at private nonprofit schools, raising questions about the degree to which for-profit schools are preparing students for careers that will allow them to pay off debts.

Because the government must track loan repayment over two years, Monday's data represents the first full assessment of students' ability to repay college loans in the Great Recession. And the numbers were bleak: the overall student loan default rate increased at the highest rate in two decades.

"We do think the economy is a big factor in the growth of these student loan default rates," said James Kvaal, a deputy undersecretary of education. "Another trend worth highlighting is the growth in for-profit colleges. Many of those colleges offer excellent, innovative programs, but we do also see disproportionate default rates among students who are enrolled in those programs."

For-profit colleges have been conspicuous beneficiaries of the economic downturn, as many of the publicly traded corporations that own such institutions expanded enrollments rapidly as legions of unemployed Americans looked to college as a way to improve their fortunes.

The high number of student loan defaults at for-profit institutions has prompted heightened government scrutiny in recent years, amid evidence that some schools aggressively market their programs to students but fail to deliver on the promise of careers. For-profit schools typically cost nearly twice as much as public colleges and universities, and students on average graduate with much higher student loan debt.

Because of the high costs, students at for-profit colleges borrow at much higher rates than those who attend public or private nonprofit schools. According to an analysis of federal education data by The Institute for College Access and Success, 92 percent of students at for-profit colleges took out student loans in the 2007-'08 school year, compared to 27 percent of students at public colleges and 60 percent at private nonprofit colleges.

For-profit colleges have also aggressively targeted minority students. Black and Hispanic students make up 28 percent of undergraduate students nationwide, but they represent nearly half of all students in the for-profit college sector.

"When you see 15 percent of borrowers at for-profit colleges are defaulting, its important to remember that almost all students at those colleges are borrowing, so that shows a much more significant problem in that one sector," said Debbie Cochrane, program director at the Institute of College Access and Success.

Nearly half of all student loan defaults measured by the Department of Education could be attributed to students at for-profit colleges, even though students at such schools represent less than 28 percent of all borrowers.

The federal government measures student loan default rates as a way to gauge student success, and to determine whether certain schools should be eligible to receive federal student aid dollars.

Student loan debt is among the most difficult to discharge, persisting beyond even bankruptcy. Borrowers in default on student loans can be subject to wage garnishment as well as deductions from federal income tax refunds, and they are ineligible to receive federal student aid in the future.

"What is really sad about this is that most of these people are done -- this is their last chance, because they have now defaulted," said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. "That will follow them to their grave. You can default on your house, but you can’t default on a student loan."

The Department of Education data released Monday is a snapshot of students over two years: the government tracked those who began repaying loans between October 2008 and September 2009, and measured whether they defaulted on those loans before October 2010. A loan is considered in default if no payment has been made after 360 days.

In a statement, Brian Moran, the head of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, which represents for-profit colleges, said he was "disappointed" to see the data but noted, "we believe that the default rates will go down when the economy improves and the unemployment rate drops."

"Despite today's disappointing news, we should remain focused on the overarching missions, which is to help individuals rise as high as their talent, ability and ambition will take them," Moran’s statement read.

Under current regulations, schools that have student loan default rates in excess of 25 percent for three consecutive years can face sanctions or lose access to federal student lending programs. Five schools were subject to sanctions this year, four of which were for-profit schools.

Beginning in 2014, the Department of Education will start to analyze student loan default rates over three years, as opposed to the current two-year window. Data from the Department of Education shows that many more students default in the third year after entering loan repayment. And some schools have actively managed their default rates by putting students into loan deferment or forbearance plans that prevent defaulting within the two-year window, but do little beyond that timeframe.

"That’s a good thing if that helps those students manage their student loan responsibilities, but in some cases it may serve just to delay the default and increase the amount of the loan," said Kvaal, the deputy undersecretary of education.


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Sources: ABC News, Huffington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama's Troop Withdrawal Plan Ends Bush's "War On Terror" PROFITEERING!!

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Last Night The Entire World Listened As Pres. Barack Obama Announced What Could Be Considered An End To Bush's Fake "War On Terror" Era.

Our Troops Are Finally Coming Home!! Thank God!

Perhaps Not All At Once, Which Is Unrealistic But At Least They Are Finally Moving Out Of Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan Heading Back To American Soil.

Hopefully For Good!

Do I Agree With Progressives That Pres. Obama's Afghan Troop Withdrawal Plan Should Be More Aggressive?

Yes!

However I Do Still Give Him Credit For Keeping His Word Regarding The Timeline To Begin Withdrawing U.S. Troops From Afghanistan.

For All The Skeptics Of Obama's Afghan Troop Withdrawal Plan, Here's Something Crucial To Consider.

If It Were Up To A Republican President, The Idea Of A Troop Withdrawal Plan Would NEVER Have Been Discussed!

And Why Should It?

Why Discuss An Afghan Troop Withdrawal Plan If Hundreds Of GOP Leaders On Capitol Hill Are Earning Million$ Each Year From Oil Interests & If Millions Of Dollar$ Are Being Donated To GOP Campaign Pots From Super Wealthy, NO Tax Paying Government Contractors Friends?

i.e., War PROFITEERING!!

That's Right! I Said It!

Many GOP Leaders & Friends Of GOP Leaders Have Become Millionaires From Bush's "War On Terror" PROFITEERING!!

Now Do You Understand Why Most GOP Leaders & Pentagon Generals NEVER Want U.S. Troops To Leave Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan?? NOT Ever??

Its ALL About Oil Interests & Government Contractor PROFITEERING!

NOT National Security Or World Peace!

Thank The Good Lord Pres. Obama Genuinely Does Care About National Security & World Peace.

I Also Thank God Pres. Obama Wants To STOP Throwing U.S. Dollars To The Wind Overseas By Placing Billion$ Of Taxpayer Money Into The Hands Of Corrupt Middle East Leaders.

Real FREEDOM & Democracy Can NOT Be Purchased!

If Karzai (Afghanistan) & Zardari (Pakistan) REALLY Want Their Nations To Experience Some level Of Democracy, Let Them Use Their OWN Money & Troops To Do It!


Once Again I Am NOT Opposed To U.S. Forces Being Deployed After Osama Bin Laden's 9-11 Attack On American Soil.

The U.S. Government SHOULD Have Responded As Such Because What Happened To Our Nation On 9-11 Was Indeed An Act Of War!

However......

I Still Believe Bush's Administration Could Have Captured & Executed Osama Bin Laden Long Before The Obama Administration Acted If That Is TRULY What G.W. Bush Wanted.

History Has Since Proven Former Pres. George W. Bush Did NOT Really Want Bin Laden Killed.

How Do I Know This Theory To Be True?

Because It Took Bush's Administration 8 Years To NEVER Capture Osama Bin Laden, While It Took Obama's Administration ONLY 2 Years To Capture & Execute This Greedy Murderer.

So Please Don't Try To Persuade Me To Believe That Bush's Endorsement Of Torture Tactics Worked Or Helped Lead Obama's Administration Officials To Osama Bin Laden's Capture & Execution Because I'm NOT Buying It!!

Thanks To Pres. Obama's Afghan Troop Withdrawal Plan, A New Future Now Lies Ahead For America & Her U.S. Armed Forces.

No More Blood Money Being Wasted To Harbor Murderers & Crooks!!

No More U.S. Troops Being Used As Pawns On A Chessboard Losing Their Lives To Prop Up Greedy Politicians & Their Super Wealthy, No Tax Paying Government Contractor Friends!

Especially Government Contractor Friends Who Refuse To Hire Minority Veterans Or Pay Minority Veterans Wages Equal To What They Pay, White Veterans!

And Money Previously Wasted Overseas By The U.S. Dept Of Defense, Can Finally Be Put To Good Use Creating American Jobs Via Rebuilding Our OWN Nation.

Ex: Fixing Crumbling, Decades Old Infrastructures, Creating Clean Energy Jobs & Green Energy Jobs, Reducing Our Deficit, Restructuring Our Broken, Racist Public Education System, etc.,

So While I Do Agree Pres. Obama's Afghanistan Withdrawal Plan Should Have Been More Aggressive, I Still Applaud Him For Making The Best Of A Terrible Mess.

A "War On Terror" PROFITEERING Mess Left By His Predecessor, George W. Bush.

For The Record I Don't Hate Former Pres. George W. Bush.

I Just Hate What He Did To Our Country Via His Fake "War On Terror".

VOTE OBAMA IN 2012!!!






Obama Will Speed Pullout From War in Afghanistan


President Obama declared Wednesday that the United States had largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan, setting in motion a substantial withdrawal of American troops in an acknowledgment of the shifting threat in the region and the fast-changing political and economic landscape in a war-weary America.

Asserting that the country that served as a base for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks no longer represented a terrorist threat to the United States, Mr. Obama declared that the “tide of war is receding.” And in a blunt recognition of domestic economic strains, he said, “America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.”

Mr. Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. The remaining 20,000 troops from the 2009 “surge” of forces would leave by next summer, amounting to about a third of the 100,000 troops now in the country. He said the drawdown would continue “at a steady pace” until the United States handed over security to the Afghan authorities in 2014.

The troop reductions, which were decided after a short but fierce internal debate, will be both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama’s military commanders, and they will come as the president faces relentless budget pressures, an increasingly restive American public and a re-election campaign next year.

Only hours after Mr. Obama spoke, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said on Thursday that he would also begin drawing down the 4,000-strong French contingent in Afghanistan.

”Given the progress we have seen, France will begin a gradual withdrawal of reinforcement troops sent to Afghanistan, in a proportional manner and in a calendar comparable to the withdrawal of American reinforcements,” Mr. Sarkozy said in a statement issued by his office, Reuters reported.

Mr. Obama, speaking in businesslike tones during a 15-minute address from the East Room of the White House, talked of ending America’s longest war and of the painful lessons he thought could be taken from it. While justifying the nation’s decade-long commitment, he talked of “ending the war responsibly” and warned of the perils of overextending the military by sending large numbers of soldiers into combat. He acknowledged that huge challenges remained before an end to the conflict that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and 1,500 American lives.

The withdrawals would begin winding down the military’s counterinsurgency strategy, which Mr. Obama adopted 18 months ago. Administration officials indicated that they now planned to place more emphasis on focused clandestine counterterrorism operations of the kind that killed Osama bin Laden, which the president cited as Exhibit A in the case for a substantial American troop reduction.

“We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength,” Mr. Obama said. “Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11.” He said that an intense campaign of drone strikes and other covert operations in Pakistan had crippled Al Qaeda’s original network in the region, leaving its leaders either dead or pinned down in the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Of 30 top Qaeda leaders identified by American intelligence, 20 have been killed in the last year and a half, administration officials said.

But the withdrawal of the entire surge force by the end of next summer will significantly change the way that the United States wages war in Afghanistan, analysts said, suggesting that the administration may have concluded it can no longer achieve its loftiest ambitions there.

Mr. Obama acknowledged as much in his remarks. “We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place,” he said. “We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government.”

Mr. Obama’s decision is a victory for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has long argued for curtailing the military operation in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama indicated a willingness to move toward more focused covert operations of the type that the United States is conducting in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. “When threatened, we must respond with force,” he said. “But when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.”

The pace of the withdrawal is a setback for the president’s top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has been named director of the Central Intelligence Agency. General Petraeus did not endorse the decision, said another official. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates argued publicly against a too-hasty withdrawal of troops, but he said in a statement on Wednesday that he supported Mr. Obama’s decision.

During the internal debate, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also expressed reservations about the scale of the reductions, officials said.

General Petraeus had recommended limiting withdrawals to 5,000 troops this year and another 5,000 over the winter.

He and other military commanders argued that the 18 months since Mr. Obama announced the troop increase did not allow for enough time for the Americans to consolidate the fragile gains that they had made in Helmand and other provinces.

But troops have succeeded in clearing many towns and cities of insurgents, and then keeping them safe so that markets were able to reopen and girls could go to school, for example.

Military officials say the withdrawal of American troops will impose limits on which areas of the country can be pacified. In particular, plans to pivot extra American troops from south and southwestern Afghanistan to volatile areas in the east, along the Pakistan border, will be curtailed or even canceled, officials said.

The effort to transfer responsibility for security to Afghan forces remains elusive because the Afghan troops are proving unprepared for the job. Corruption in the government of President Hamid Karzai continues to be rampant, sapping the confidence of many Afghans.

Still, the growing disenchantment in the United States with the war, particularly given the ballooning national debt, the country’s slow economic recovery and the whopping $120 billion price tag of the Afghan conflict this year alone, were all considerations weighed by the president. “Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war at a time of rising debt and hard economic times,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource: our people.”

Republican presidential candidates including Mitt Romney and Jon M. Huntsman Jr. are demanding a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan, while Democrats complain that the cost of the war is siphoning money away from efforts to create jobs in the United States. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, called on Mr. Obama to speed the withdrawal. “If we’re going to leave, we should leave,” he said in a statement. “The centralized system of government foisted upon the Afghan people is not going to hold after we leave. So let’s quit prolonging the agony and the inevitable.”

Highlighting the unusual political splits the war is causing, other Republicans criticized the president for pulling out too soon. Representative Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that Mr. Obama was playing politics with the troop reduction, saying, “The president is trying to find a political solution with a military component, when it needs to be the other way around.” He said the situation in Afghanistan was “very precarious,” and that the White House seemed to be panicking about the levels of violence.

Mr. Obama’s speech, delivered at dawn on Thursday, Kabul time, is expected to be the subject of a speech by Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, scheduled for later in the day. Senior figures in Mr. Karzai’s administration began signaling that they were comfortable with the withdrawal of 10,000 troops by year’s end.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said the Afghan National Army “has this capability and quantity to fill the gap of those places where the foreign troops withdraw and leave Afghanistan.”

“We are ready,” General Azimi said.

Muhammad Siddique Aziz, an adviser to Mr. Karzai on tribal affairs, said the withdrawal plan was acceptable, but he warned against a complete withdrawal of American troops before the Afghan government was strong enough to administer the country on its own. “I think they have to concentrate more on the Afghan government so when they leave, the government can stand up on its own,” Mr. Aziz said.


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Sources: CNN, Guardian.co.uk, MSNBC, NY Times, Raw Story, Youtube, Google Maps

Goldman's E-mails Reveal Profits Soared As Housing Bubble Burst

Goldman E-Mails Cited Serious Profit on Mortgages


In late 2007, as the mortgage crisis gained momentum and many banks were suffering losses, Goldman Sachs executives traded e-mail messages saying that they would make “some serious money” betting against the housing markets, The New York Times’s Louise Story and Sewell Chan report.

The messages, released Saturday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, appear to contradict statements by Goldman that left the impression that the firm lost money on mortgage-related investments.

In the messages, Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, acknowledged in November 2007 that the firm had lost money initially. But it later recovered by making negative bets, known as short positions, to profit as housing prices plummeted. “Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess,” he wrote. “We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.”

He added, “It’s not over, so who knows how it will turn out ultimately.”

In another message, dated July 25, 2007, David A. Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer, reacted to figures that said the company had made a $51 million profit from bets that housing securities would drop in value. “Tells you what might be happening to people who don’t have the big short,” he wrote to Gary D. Cohn, now Goldman’s president.

Actions taken by Wall Street firms during the housing collapse have become a major factor in the contentious debate over financial reform. In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Obama said Wall Street had “hurt just about every sector of our economy” and again pressed the case for tighter regulation. On Monday, Senate Democrats will try to prevent a Republican filibuster in the first major test of the administration’s effort to push through legislation.

Goldman on Saturday denied that it made a significant profit on mortgage-related products in 2007 and 2008. It said the subcommittee had “cherry-picked” e-mail messages from the nearly 20 million pages of documents it provided. This sets up a showdown between the Senate subcommittee and Goldman, which has aggressively defended itself since the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a security fraud complaint against it nine days ago. On Tuesday, seven current and former Goldman employees, including Mr. Blankfein, are expected to testify at a Congressional hearing.

Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and head of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said that the e-mail messages contrasted with Goldman’s public statements about its trading results. “The 2009 Goldman Sachs annual report stated that the firm ‘did not generate enormous net revenues by betting against residential related products,’ ” Senator Levin said in a statement Saturday. “These e-mails show that, in fact, Goldman made a lot of money by betting against the mortgage market.”

The messages appear to connect some of the dots at a crucial moment of Goldman history. They show that in 2007, as most other banks hemorrhaged money from plummeting mortgage holdings, Goldman prospered.

At first, Goldman openly discussed its prescience in calling the housing downfall. In the third quarter of 2007, the investment bank reported publicly that it had made big profits on its negative bet on mortgages.

But by the end of 2007, the firm curtailed disclosures about its mortgage trading results. Its chief financial officer told analysts that they should not expect Goldman to reveal whether it was long or short on the housing market. By late 2008, Goldman was emphasizing its losses, rather than its profits, pointing regularly to write-downs of $1.7 billion on mortgage assets in 2008 and not disclosing the amount it made on its negative bets.

Goldman and other firms often take positions on both sides of an investment. Some are long, which are bets that the investment will do well, and some are shorts, which are bets the investment will do poorly.

Goldman has said it added shorts to balance its mortgage book, not to make a directional bet on a market collapse. But the messages released by the subcommittee Saturday appear to show that in 2007, at least, Goldman’s short bets were eclipsing the losses on its long positions.

In May 2007, for instance, Goldman workers e-mailed one another about losses on a bundle of mortgages issued by Long Beach Mortgage Securities. Though the firm lost money on those, a worker wrote, there was “good news”: “we own 10 mm in protection.” That meant Goldman had enough of a bet against the bond that, over all, it profited by $5 million.

On Oct. 11, 2007, one Goldman manager in the trading unit wrote to another, “Sounds like we will make some serious money,” and received the response, “Yes we are well positioned.”



Documents released by the Senate subcommittee appear to indicate that in July 2007, Goldman’s accounting showed losses of $322 million on positive mortgage positions, but its negative bet — what Mr. Viniar called “the big short” — brought in $373 million.

As recently as a week ago, a Goldman spokesman emphasized that the firm had tried only to hedge its mortgage holdings in 2007.

The firm said in its annual report this month that it did not know back then where housing was headed, a sentiment expressed by Mr. Blankfein the last time he appeared before Congress.

“We did not know at any minute what would happen next, even though there was a lot of writing,” he told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in January.

It is not known how much money in total Goldman made on its negative housing bets. Neither Goldman nor the panel issued information about Goldman’s mortgage earnings in 2009

In its response on Saturday, Goldman Sachs released an assortment of internal e-mail messages. They showed workers disagreeing at some junctures over the direction of the mortgage market. In 2008, Goldman was stung by some losses on higher-quality mortgage bonds it held, when the crisis expanded from losses on risky bonds with subprime loans to losses in mortgages that were given to people with better credit histories.

Still, in late 2006, there are messages that show Goldman executives discussing ways to get rid of the firm’s positive mortgage positions by selling them to clients. In one message, Goldman’s chief financial officer, Mr. Viniar, wrote, “Let’s be aggressive distributing things.”

Goldman also released detailed financial statements for its mortgage trading unit. Those statements showed that a group of traders in what was known as the structured products group made a profit of $3.69 billion as of Oct. 26, 2007, which more than covered losses in other parts of Goldman’s mortgage unit.

Several traders from that group will testify on Tuesday, and their profitable short positions are likely to be of interest to the Senate committee. The Abacus deal that is involved in the S.E.C. complaint and others like it were created within that group.

The messages released by Goldman included many written by Fabrice Tourre, the executive who is the only Goldman employee named in the S.E.C. complaint. They reveal his skepticism about the direction of the subprime mortgage market in 2007. In a March 7 message to his girlfriend, he wrote, “According to Sparks, that business is totally dead, and the poor little subprime borrowers will not last so long.” He was referring to Dan Sparks, then the head of Goldman’s mortgage trading unit.

The Senate subcommittee began its investigation in November 2008, but its work attracted little attention until a series of hearings in the last month.

The Senate announced that it would convene a hearing on Goldman Sachs within a week of the S.E.C.’s fraud suit. Some members of Congress questioned whether the two investigations had been coordinated.

Mr. Levin’s staff said there was no connection between the two investigations. The subcommittee issued subpoenas to Goldman on June 30 of last year and again on March 12, and informed Goldman about who would be called as witnesses on April 5. The S.E.C. has said there was no political motivation in the timing of its complaint.

Among the lawyers Goldman has hired to deal with the Senate inquiry are Michael D. Bopp, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and K. Lee Blalack II, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers.

Mr. Bopp and Mr. Blalack are based in Washington and both once worked as lawyers for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Mr. Blalack was the subcommittee’s chief counsel and staff director.


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Sources: CBS News, C-Span, Huffington Post, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Did Toyota Care More About Profits Than Customers? Yes!

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Toyota Apologizes But Asserts Electronics OK



The president of Toyota's operations apologized for the company's handling of safety issues Tuesday while insisting that electronic problems did not contribute to sudden acceleration of its cars. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood argued that such a possibility could not be ruled out.

Toyota's James Lentz and LaHood presented differing views in prepared testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative panel, the first of three congressional panels holding hearings on Toyota's problems.

The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., set the tone for sharp questioning of Lentz at the hearing's outset.

"Toyota all but ignored pleas from consumers to examine sudden unintended acceleration events," he said. "They boast in a briefing of saving Toyota $100 million by negotiating a limited recall. They claim that they first became aware of sticking pedals in late October of 2009 when in fact they had received numerous complaints many months and years earlier."

"They misled the American public," Stupak added, "by saying that they and other independent sources had thoroughly analyzed the electronics systems and eliminated electronics as a possible cause of sudden unintended acceleration when, in fact, the only such review was a flawed study conducted by a company retained by Toyota's lawyers."

Lentz said in prepared testimony that Toyota had poor communications within the company, with government regulators and with its customers.

But he also said that Toyota has no problems with its electronic throttle controls, which have been blamed as a possible cause of unintended acceleration in some Toyota models.

Also being heard from Tuesday are drivers like Rhonda Smith, a Sevierville, Tenn., woman whose Toyota-made Lexus suddenly zoomed to 100 miles per hour as she tried to get it to stop — shifting to neutral, trying to throw the car into reverse and hitting the emergency brake. Finally, her car slowed down before she crashed.

Smith wrote down her feelings after the 2006 scare, saying she had "a near death experience, which occurred on October 12, 2006 between approximately 10:50 and 11:00 a.m. At almost exactly 6 miles God intervened" and slowed the car. She said that nothing she had tried had worked.

Smith's description of her nightmare ride in October 2006 will precede testimony by safety experts — and set the tone for the hearing. Toyota executives and the secretary of transportation also will be at the witness table. Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative panel will be armed with preliminary staff findings that Toyota and the government failed to protect the public.

Toyota, which has recalled 8.5 million vehicles to fix acceleration problems in several models and braking issues in the 2010 hybrid Prius, is bringing apologies to the hearing.

"In recent months, we have not lived up to the high standards our customers and the public have come to expect from Toyota," said Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. in prepared testimony. "Put simply, it has taken us too long to come to grips with a rare but serious set of safety issues, despite all of our good faith efforts."

More than 150 Toyota dealers gathered in the Capitol Tuesday morning before the hearing to lobby lawmakers in support of the carmaker. Many wore buttons saying, "I am Toyota in America."

"We made a choice, a conscious decision, to be part of something, rather than just submit to it," said Tammy Darvish, a Washington area dealer who helped organize the action, which Toyota also helped coordinate.

Dealers Complain

Toyota dealers are complaining that the besieged automaker is being treated unfairly by the U.S. government. Some say it's because the government has invested billions in two competitors, General Motors and Chrysler.

At a news conference in advance of the hearing Tuesday morning, some complained the government is picking on Toyota, even though there have been dozens of recalls of other automakers' vehicles in the past year.

Toyota revealed Monday that federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are now investigating the company's safety problems and what it told government investigators.

Lentz was defiant on one point, asserting that Toyota is confident "no problems exist with the electronic throttle control system in our vehicles. We have designed our electronic throttle control system with multiple fail-safe mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power in the event of a system failure."

LaHood, in written, prepared testimony, said his agency will ensure the safety of Toyota vehicles. He added the department's investigation includes the possibility that interference with electronics had a role in sudden acceleration.

"Although we are not aware of any incident proven to be caused by such interference, NHTSA (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is doing a thorough review of that subject to ensure safety," the secretary said. "If NHTSA finds a problem, we will make sure it is resolved."

Slow to Respond

Committee investigators have made preliminary findings that the government was slow to respond to 2,600 complaints of sudden unintended acceleration from 2000 to 2010.

LaHood countered, "Every step of the way, NHTSA officials have pushed Toyota to take corrective action so that consumers would be safe."

On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hear from company president Akio Toyoda, who is expected to speak to the committee and the American public through a translator.

In an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal, Toyoda acknowledged that the automaker had stumbled badly.

"It is clear to me that in recent years we didn't listen as carefully as we should — or respond as quickly as we must — to our customers' concerns," wrote Toyoda.


Sources: MSNBC, Toyota