I limit my intake of news. I have to. The more I watch, the more I realize, the best thing that could ever possibly happen to this planet would be the complete extinction of the Human species. Thinking like that scares me.
Since it's Halloween today I decided to focus on that idea. What scares me?
What scares me is that I live in a country that goes out of it's way to threaten, argue with and use multiple other means to stop a country that is by most accounts ten years away from a functioning nuclear device from obtaining one. A country that does this while at the exact same time borrows billions of dollars, gives most favored trade nation status to and extends multiple other benefits to a country that by all accounts is one of biggest human rights violators in the world. Has more nuclear bombs than almost every other country save for Russia and the U.S. and has one of the largest armies in the world.
What scares me is that France has for more than several years now condemned much of the U.S.'s actions in the Middle East but at the same time provides U.S. intelligence agencies facilities to engage in persuasive interrogation.
What scares me is that there are whole countries starving to death and have not seen rain for a year or more but the most important thing to a voter in the United States is whether or not their candidate is a homosexual.
What scares me is a pharmaceutical company will spend billions on the development of a pill that prolongs erections but according to UNICEF the goal numbers set by multiple nations for children's world health are woefully under achieved.
What scares me is that a man that wins a Nobel Prize for his efforts to make others aware of global warming flies around the world in one year (putting more pollutants in the atmosphere in one year that some companies) than I have my entire life.
What scares me is that people take religion seriously.
What scares me is that people kill in the name of a God that may or may not exist.
But what scares me most of all?
What scares me most of all is I'm just like everyone else. Everything that makes the human species scary makes me scary. That's what scares me most of all.
Hen pecked by today's society this is a place where I use passive aggression to keep the insanity at bay.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Mandatory Arbitration
Three years ago I purchased a new car. It was the first time I have ever purchased a car by getting a loan. Up until then I had always paid cash and owned cars outright. (try it, it's very liberating) Although I am aware that most financial advisers would cringe at the thought I actually bought a car via loan I was kinda in a bind.
I went through the long drawn out process of contract signing. I hated it then but I really had no choice. I needed a car.
Yesterday I was listening to a local talk radio program, (Francene on WHAS) and they were discussing Binding Mandatory Arbitration. I remembered the phrase on one of the contracts I signed while buying my car so my ears perked up.
Turns out that almost every contract you sign, cell phone, car, home loan and credit card contracts, have this clause in it. Most people either don't notice it or have gotten so use to it they fail to see it anymore.
I'll explain how I have understood this clause up until now. Oh, and a brief disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, legal analyst or anyone who would know how to understand legal jargon. I have always understood it to be that the purchaser agrees to attend arbitration first should there be any conflict with the service/product. If the arbitration does not end to my satisfaction then I can then proceed with legal action. That's even how it's was explained to me when I bought my car.
Well guess what? Not true. Not true at all. The clause literally means you have waived your right to legal recourse when you are dissatisfied with service/product or even if total negligence is taking place. In other words when you have a dispute it has to go to arbitration. If you initiate it you pay all the fees. Lawyers have no weight in the proceedings and in 94% of the cases the company prevails. Not to mention no matter what is decided in arbitration you have no right to appeal and certainly no right to sue.
Wow! To think that if I were sold a lemon I couldn't sue. Or worse, if the car blew up and killed me my relatives would have no legal recourse. I have heard terrible stories that doctors now require you to sign this clause and so do utility companies. There is virtually no choice in signing contracts with this clause.
I've read you can cross out this section on the contract and initial it but there is conflict as to how legitimate this may be. Plus it depends on the state as to whether or not you can force the company into court. You may very well have signed your constitutional right to due process away.
According to the radio show it was started to try and alleviate some of the court congestion. That if a company needs to sue to get you to pay your cable bill then that would be more reasonably handled in arbitration not the courts. So it started with good intentions. Like all good intentions, once corporate lawyers got hold of it they managed to twist it so profit wins out no matter what. Did you know more corporations sued on the basis of the 13Th amendment than former slaves? (sorry, another story another day)
Well this story has a happy ending. I have completely paid my car off and the contract is no longer important. But be wary when you are getting cable, having surgery or just renewing cell phone coverage. You may be signing a contract that legally allows Sprint to sell you off in to slavery, along with other waived constitutional rights.
I went through the long drawn out process of contract signing. I hated it then but I really had no choice. I needed a car.
Yesterday I was listening to a local talk radio program, (Francene on WHAS) and they were discussing Binding Mandatory Arbitration. I remembered the phrase on one of the contracts I signed while buying my car so my ears perked up.
Turns out that almost every contract you sign, cell phone, car, home loan and credit card contracts, have this clause in it. Most people either don't notice it or have gotten so use to it they fail to see it anymore.
I'll explain how I have understood this clause up until now. Oh, and a brief disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, legal analyst or anyone who would know how to understand legal jargon. I have always understood it to be that the purchaser agrees to attend arbitration first should there be any conflict with the service/product. If the arbitration does not end to my satisfaction then I can then proceed with legal action. That's even how it's was explained to me when I bought my car.
Well guess what? Not true. Not true at all. The clause literally means you have waived your right to legal recourse when you are dissatisfied with service/product or even if total negligence is taking place. In other words when you have a dispute it has to go to arbitration. If you initiate it you pay all the fees. Lawyers have no weight in the proceedings and in 94% of the cases the company prevails. Not to mention no matter what is decided in arbitration you have no right to appeal and certainly no right to sue.
Wow! To think that if I were sold a lemon I couldn't sue. Or worse, if the car blew up and killed me my relatives would have no legal recourse. I have heard terrible stories that doctors now require you to sign this clause and so do utility companies. There is virtually no choice in signing contracts with this clause.
I've read you can cross out this section on the contract and initial it but there is conflict as to how legitimate this may be. Plus it depends on the state as to whether or not you can force the company into court. You may very well have signed your constitutional right to due process away.
According to the radio show it was started to try and alleviate some of the court congestion. That if a company needs to sue to get you to pay your cable bill then that would be more reasonably handled in arbitration not the courts. So it started with good intentions. Like all good intentions, once corporate lawyers got hold of it they managed to twist it so profit wins out no matter what. Did you know more corporations sued on the basis of the 13Th amendment than former slaves? (sorry, another story another day)
Well this story has a happy ending. I have completely paid my car off and the contract is no longer important. But be wary when you are getting cable, having surgery or just renewing cell phone coverage. You may be signing a contract that legally allows Sprint to sell you off in to slavery, along with other waived constitutional rights.
Friday, October 26, 2007
The pickle
This is my first posting, so all you be gentle.
Today I was informed that my yearly salary was the bottom of the range believed to be middle class. That explains a lot. I was always wondering why I couldn't afford, well really anything.
In this city the average salary is repeated over and over like a sort of mantra. Let me tell you, it's nothing to really be proud of. That's not to say I wouldn't gladly accept the average salary, seeing as it would be over a ten thousand dollar raise for me, it's just Louisville isn't exactly geared toward the people who make the average salary.
This all got me to thinking about salaries and the median and middle class. If I'm the bottom, or the crust on the bottom of a Big Mac then how do I get to be the pickle? Hell, how to I get to be the odd conglomeration of mustard and mayonnaise under the meat?
I have worked at more than a few places in this town and have met more than a couple of people. Almost everyone I meet makes same as I do and all the jobs pay what I get paid. So I wonder where are all these people making this median income? Not even our police and fire fighters make the median, or really precious few do.
Of course it is explained to me that this amount ($43,000) is determined by taking all the salaries in the middle income bracket for Louisville, adding them together and then dividing by the estimated number of people in this bracket to get the "median" of the middle income. So although our median is suppose to be $43,000, that number can be inaccurate depending on where the bean counters capped the upper limit. Or to say, what they decided was the pickle.
So, if let's say the bean counters decided $200,000 was the pickle then although most of the middle income (the meat) is exceptionally lower the median of the middle could very likely be set actually higher than most middle incomes. Then this would mean the middle of the middle was actually the top of the middle? The problem is, standard of living in this city is set by the median number determined by the bean counters.
Oh, let me interject that although our median is said to be $43,000, this in no way reflects actual salaries. So don't be thinking you can hop a train and land here making that amount at any old job. Our city has actually lost much of it's manufacturing industry and most other industry pays about, give or take a couple of thousands, $28,000 to $31,000.
In any case, I have just gotten to a place where I wonder how can you reconcile the fact you become $25 - $35,000 in debt to college but end up earning less than that a year. Not to mention if that median income is set a little high who does that really benefit?
So far here it makes the Mayor look good and it makes it appear our city economy is stronger than it really is. So I guess it could work to attract business, but that doesn't solve the problem of all us crust people not making enough to actually live in the city limits. Plus if our middle income were truly represented by a Big Mac, then the meat would be the saddest piece of meat you ever did see.
So essentially our middle income Big Mac is "little in the middle but it's got much back."
Today I was informed that my yearly salary was the bottom of the range believed to be middle class. That explains a lot. I was always wondering why I couldn't afford, well really anything.
In this city the average salary is repeated over and over like a sort of mantra. Let me tell you, it's nothing to really be proud of. That's not to say I wouldn't gladly accept the average salary, seeing as it would be over a ten thousand dollar raise for me, it's just Louisville isn't exactly geared toward the people who make the average salary.
This all got me to thinking about salaries and the median and middle class. If I'm the bottom, or the crust on the bottom of a Big Mac then how do I get to be the pickle? Hell, how to I get to be the odd conglomeration of mustard and mayonnaise under the meat?
I have worked at more than a few places in this town and have met more than a couple of people. Almost everyone I meet makes same as I do and all the jobs pay what I get paid. So I wonder where are all these people making this median income? Not even our police and fire fighters make the median, or really precious few do.
Of course it is explained to me that this amount ($43,000) is determined by taking all the salaries in the middle income bracket for Louisville, adding them together and then dividing by the estimated number of people in this bracket to get the "median" of the middle income. So although our median is suppose to be $43,000, that number can be inaccurate depending on where the bean counters capped the upper limit. Or to say, what they decided was the pickle.
So, if let's say the bean counters decided $200,000 was the pickle then although most of the middle income (the meat) is exceptionally lower the median of the middle could very likely be set actually higher than most middle incomes. Then this would mean the middle of the middle was actually the top of the middle? The problem is, standard of living in this city is set by the median number determined by the bean counters.
Oh, let me interject that although our median is said to be $43,000, this in no way reflects actual salaries. So don't be thinking you can hop a train and land here making that amount at any old job. Our city has actually lost much of it's manufacturing industry and most other industry pays about, give or take a couple of thousands, $28,000 to $31,000.
In any case, I have just gotten to a place where I wonder how can you reconcile the fact you become $25 - $35,000 in debt to college but end up earning less than that a year. Not to mention if that median income is set a little high who does that really benefit?
So far here it makes the Mayor look good and it makes it appear our city economy is stronger than it really is. So I guess it could work to attract business, but that doesn't solve the problem of all us crust people not making enough to actually live in the city limits. Plus if our middle income were truly represented by a Big Mac, then the meat would be the saddest piece of meat you ever did see.
So essentially our middle income Big Mac is "little in the middle but it's got much back."