Is Is Way Past Time For This Investigation. The #CapitalistPigsInBowlingGreen Re Killing Us With Outrageous Gas Prices!

Adding fuel to the fire

Bowling Green citizens' group calling for gas price investigation

A group of citizens in the Bowling Green area plans to ask Attorney General Jack Conway to investigate the pricing of gasoline in the city.
On July 17, they will present to the attorney general’s office a petition with more than 2,000 signatures calling for the investigation.

Edward R. Caston Sr. of Bowling Green said he consistently sees Bowling Green with higher gasoline prices than those of surrounding communities.

Prices are also usually the same across most gas stations in the city, he said.

An attorney general investigation could discover the reasons behind the patterns that he sees, Caston said.

“I think what they’ll discover is that the people, whoever they are, have been doing this for too long,” he said.

Caston has been recording gas prices and said that on June 1, gas was 44 cents a gallon higher in Bowling Green than in Simpson County.

While Caston said he’s not anti-business, he does want legitimate reasons for gas stations to raise prices.

“All we want is some fairness,” he said.

Caston and friend William Skaggs have been collecting signatures on their petition since about April, going out occasionally doing things like standing in the parking lot of the Warren County Justice Center to talk to people about signing, Caston said.

They have collected 2,168 names, Caston said.

Caston wrote a commentary on Bowling Green gas prices that was published in the Daily News in February and said the response from people asking what could be done about gas prices prompted him to start the petition.

High gas prices don’t only affect what people pay at the pump, but can add to the cost of transporting products, Caston said. That cost can lead to higher prices for items such as bread and milk.

“It affects every one of us,” he said.

Skaggs said people responded well and seemed to know exactly what he was talking about when he asked them to sign the petition.

“You go north. You go south. You go west. You save 20, 30, 40 cents a gallon,” Skaggs said.

They have also been collecting signatures online at www.change.org, though most of them have come by asking in person, he said.

Caston said that if the signatures he has collected aren’t enough to prompt an investigation, he plans to ask what number would spur some action so he can continue to have people sign the petition.

“We’re willing to go out and get the other names,” he said.

Allison Martin, communications director for Conway, said the attorney general’s office investigated gas prices across the state in 2008. That investigation had an emphasis on the Louisville market but was statewide, which included Bowling Green, she said.

In the 2008 investigation, the attorney general concluded that Marathon Petroleum Co., in acquiring Ashland Oil in 1996, “negatively impacted competition in the gasoline market in Kentucky and in particular in the market of reformulated gasoline, which is required to be sold in Louisville and Northern Kentucky,” according to a 2011 press release from the attorney general’s office.

The investigation was referred to the Federal Trade Commission, which didn’t take any action, Martin said.

There have recently been some leadership changes at the FTC, and about two weeks ago Conway met with new Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, who was appointed to the position in March, and Commissioner Julie Brill. They agreed to have him forward the investigation to the FTC again, she said.

Kroger spokeswoman Melissa Eads said Kroger gas stations strive for prices similar to those of other neighborhood gas stations.

While factors such as natural disasters and fuel production can impact the cost of fuel on a more global scale, local Kroger stores keep tabs on the prices of their competitors in order to set their own prices.

“I can tell you that fuel is a very local and competitive business,” Eads said.

Each of Bowling Green’s Kroger stores has a gas station, and the store’s reward program can help people save money on gas, she said.

“That has really become an important part of our business,” Eads said.

The petition can be signed online at www.change.org. Enter “Jack Conway” into the search function for access.

The Libor Scandal And Capitalism's Moral Decay.

The Libor Scandal and Capitalism's Moral Decay
By David Rohde

The scandal engulfing the financial industry is yet another sign that our business leaders no longer respect the rule of law.

Maybe the acronym at the heart of the scandal is too confusing. Or Americans are simply tired of hearing about greedy bankers. By any measure, though, the Libor bank scandal is an extraordinary example of the 1 percent stealing from the 99 percent - and our crumbling ethics.

If an organized crime group was accused of breaking into the Nassau County Treasurer's Office on New York's Long Island and stealing $13 million, outrage would be widespread. And if the same group was accused of stealing millions from the City of Baltimore and other struggling municipalities, they would emerge as an issue in the presidential campaign.

Instead, the Libor scandal is emerging in dribs and drabs and drawing little public attention. The middle class is being victimized, and there is little protest.

Last month, the British bank Barclays agreed to pay $453 million to American and British authorities to settle allegations that it manipulated key interest rates for profit between 2005 and 2009, specifically the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor. American and British investigators are now examining whether traders at a dozen other banks -- including the "too-big-to-fail" U.S. banks JPMorgan, Citibank and Bank of America -- also manipulated rates.

It is hard to overstate the impact of the Libor benchmark, which is used to value some $360 trillion in loans and financial contracts worldwide. It affects lending to governments, businesses and consumers, and even student loan and credit card rates.

So Barclays' victims weren't just other banks and traders. They included taxpayers in dozens of communities who are believed to have paid millions more in interest than they should have at the height of the financial crisis. Teachers and other public servants may have been laid off because of bankers' pursuit of ever-higher profits.

Lawsuits filed by the City of Baltimore and dozens of other parties against Barclays, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citibank and Deutsche Bank have been consolidated into a single case in a New York federal court. Banks are denying any wrongdoing, and the true scope of the losses -- and the role of American banks -- is expected to emerge in the complex legal battles ahead.

I do not believe all bankers are evil. I admire business owners who innovate, create jobs and strengthen communities. But theft -- whether the perpetrator is clad in a business suit or blue jeans -- is theft.

And let's not kid ourselves. Our ethical decay stretches beyond Wall Street. It spans industries, political parties and groups. In April, systematic bribery by executives of the U.S.'s second-largest company - Walmart - was reported across Mexico. In June, American sports officials accused cyclist Lance Armstrong of engaging in a massive doping conspiracy. And Jesse Jackson Jr. appears to be the fifth member of Congress to be embroiled in an ethics scandal in two years.

Around the world, a globalized economy is creating planetary-sized profits -- and relentless pressure. A May survey by Ernst & Young of 400 chief financial officers around the world found that a growing number of them were willing to pay bribes and falsify their firm's financial performance to survive the financial downturn.

The number of chief financial officers who said they would engage in bribery to stay in business grew from 9 percent in 2011 to 15 percent in 2012. And the number who said they would misstate their company's financial health to get though a downturn rose from 3 percent in 2011 to 5 percent in 2012.

"One of the most troubling findings of the survey is the widespread acceptance of unethical business practices," Ernst & Young said in a statement. "It is particularly alarming that respondents are increasingly willing to make cash payments."

Corporate boards and other overseers, meanwhile, appear to be looking the other way. Eighty-one percent of those surveyed worldwide by Ernst & Young said anti-bribery and anti-corruption codes of conduct were in place in their companies. But nearly half said they did not believe employees had been punished for violating those polices.

The same problem exists in American institutions. Senior executives at Walmart tried to bury internal reports of bribes being paid. Leaders of Congress continue to hand out shamefully light punishments to their peers, such as the 2010 censure of New York Representative Charles Rangel.

And a report released today by former FBI Director Louis Freeh found that Joe Paterno and other senior leaders at Penn State covered up Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children for over a decade to protect the university's multi-million dollar football program.

Many columnists have said this before and many more will say it in the future. I am no paragon of virtue and I have made mistakes. But we can and must do better. Our moral decay threatens us.

A liberal, capitalist democracy -- and a middle class -- can only thrive in a culture where the rule of law is respected, information is reliable and the playing field is as level as possible. If we abandon that, we lose much more than self-respect. We squander a way of life.


David Rohde is a columnist for Reuters, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a former reporter for The New York Times. His forthcoming book, Beyond War: Technology, Economic Growth and American Influence in the New Middle East will be published in March 2013.

Breaking News: The Justice Department Is Filing Suit Today Against Apple Over E-book Pricing. So Why Is Apple So Greedy!?

Check out Politico.com for more on the story, and watch the video:



Update: Meanwhile, other publishers sued with Apple, such as Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, have settled their lawsuits with the government (Click here to read all about it), though others, such as Holtzbrinck Publishers, doing business as Macmillan, and The Penguin Publishing Co. Ltd., doing business as Penguin Group, will go to trial, though I suspect they'll settle, too.

Are You MAD Yet? Read More.

A.I.G. Planning $165 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.
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Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

The payments to A.I.G.’s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company’s senior executives and 6,400 employees across the sprawling corporation. Mr. Geithner last week pressured A.I.G. to cut the $9.6 million going to the top 50 executives in half and tie the rest to performance.

The payment of so much money at a company at the heart of the financial collapse that sent the broader economy into a tailspin almost certainly will fuel a popular backlash against the government’s efforts to prop up Wall Street. Past bonuses already have prompted President Obama and Congress to impose tough rules on corporate executive compensation at firms bailed out with taxpayer money.

A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday.

Still, Mr. Liddy seemed stung by his talk with Mr. Geithner, calling their conversation last Wednesday “a difficult one for me” and noting that he receives no bonus himself. “Needless to say, in the current circumstances,” Mr. Liddy wrote, “I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them.”

Editor's comment: are you MAD yet? If not, follow the link above to read more.

The Sh*T Is About To Hit The Fan, And Many Will Hurl Themselves Off Tall Buildings! Read More Below.

Read more here.

More Companies Experience Economic Woes, This Time It's A. I. G. .

The A.I.G. company is seeking $40 Billion in Fed Aid to Survive.

The American International Group is seeking a bridge loan from the Federal Reserve as it faces a potential downgrade from credit ratings agencies.

Read more from the NYT.

Is this the next company to go "belly up"?

Steve Beshear Apologizes For RAPE Comment. Read More.

Beshear apologizes for comparing high gas prices with rape
By Alex Davis

Gov. Steve Beshear issued an apology today after he said in a television interview that high gasoline prices were similar to oil companies “raping the citizens of Kentucky.”

“I get pretty worked up about oil companies that prey on Kentuckians and people across the country,” Beshear said in a statement. “Actually, I get angry … That is not an excuse, though. I apologize, if I offended anyone.”

Catherine Fosl, director of the University of Louisville’s Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, said that while she agreed with Beshear that oil companies may be gouging consumers, the analogy missed the mark.

“I think it’s an overly extreme comparison to the widespread, systemic violence against women. It demeans survivors of rape,” said Fosl, an associate professor at U of L for women’s and gender studies.

Beshear made the comments Saturday in an interview with a reporter at WHAS-TV. The comments were published on the station’s Web site along with a video clip.

They came a day after the governor declared a state of emergency aimed at preventing price gouging due to Hurricane Ike.

Prices at area gasoline stations soared to more than $4 a gallon over the weekend, and Beshear’s order allowed the state attorney general to investigate and prosecute those who tried to sell fuel at excessive prices.

Reactions to Beshear’s initial comment varied. State Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, called Beshear’s analogy of rape “tough, but perhaps appropriate.”

“Sometimes situations call for brutally descriptive language,” Stein said in an interview yesterday.

State Sen. Elizabeth Tori, R-Radcliff, said in a statement that “comparing high gas prices with the pain of rape survivors is inexcusable.”

According to prices posted at www.courier-journal.com/gas, the average Louisville station was selling regular unleaded for $3.85 a gallon Wednesday, up from $3.67 a gallon on Sept. 8.

The price at many area stations yesterday was between $4.08 and $4.16 a gallon.
There were long lines of drivers waiting at some stations after yesterday’s storm, and others were not selling fuel.

Editor's comment: Notice, if you will, how Katie Stine and Elizabeth Tori responded to the Governor's comment.

If you want to laugh, go ahead.

Update: BTW, if you are wondering why the Governor is so "steamed" -- and justifiably so, if you ask me -- take a look at what is happening.

While wholesale gas prices FALL (now below $97.00 a barrel), retail prices keep RISING!

Breaking News: Lehman Brothers Joins Growing List Of Companies Experiencing Economic Woes ...

... but then the BAD economic news is all in our heads, right? Watch the news below:

Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: Injudicious Building Binge.

Injudicious building binge

The future could be made brighter for many Kentuckians with almost $1 billion in state spending. That's one reason an $880 million courthouse-building binge should outrage taxpayers.

Other reasons: Almost no accountability, public participation or competition to hold down costs.

A host of troubling questions arise from "Law and Mortar," the story of former Chief Justice Joseph Lambert's edifice complex, as chronicled by Herald-Leader reporters Linda B. Blackford and Greg Kocher.

Especially troubling is that Lambert and the Administrative Office of the Courts shunned so many principles of good government as they pushed their aggressive public-works agenda over the past 10 years.

Of the three government branches, the judiciary is expected to be above politics and hold the others to ethical standards, which makes the whiff of sweetheart deals all the more unsavory.

As Blackford reported, the contracts for new judicial centers have been awarded without competitive bidding. Two politically connected firms — Codell Construction and Ross Sinclaire & Associates — have gotten most of the financing and construction contracts.

Lambert hired his personal architect to oversee the program. The process for choosing and funding 65 projects was codified in a bill sponsored by Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, who works for Ross Sinclaire, which also once employed Lambert's son.

Codell employees have given $193,500 to Kentucky politicians since 2000, including $3,500 to Lambert's wife and $61,000 to local officials, including many who have a say in decisions about judicial centers.

The company president's father, James Codell III, was transportation secretary under Gov. Paul Patton and controlled the blacktop coveted by local officials.

Meanwhile, average citizens and preservation professionals are frozen out of the decision-making as the AOC wages architectural genocide on historic downtowns.

County officials have seats on the project development boards, but decisions are controlled by grandiose statewide building specifications and the AOC.

Lambert has claimed the building program as "his greatest legacy." But the legislature deserves a big share of the credit, or blame, since it approved AOC budgets.

None of this is to suggest that modernized courtrooms and new judicial centers aren't needed, or that small towns shouldn't share in capital spending.

What's wrong is the lack of innovation and imagination going into these decisions. Rather than looking to hold down costs and adapt existing buildings, the drive has been to tear down the old and put up something as big and expensive as possible.

No thought was given to creating regional justice centers, even though circuit courts are divided into multicounty districts.

Lambert seemed flabbergasted when asked if fewer regional justice centers could substitute for one in each of 120 counties.

"I could not make an intellectually honest case to give less to Robertson County than to Fayette County,'' he said, displaying the kind of thinking that has held Kentucky back: Government scatters the spoils across the state and invests in projects, not people. A smarter state would deploy scarce resources more strategically.

While small counties got huge justice centers, Kentucky's court workers' pay stagnated to the point that lawmakers ordered Lambert to put $13.7 million over the next two years into raises for deputy court clerks. He refused.

His successor, Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr., plans to comply with the budget mandate and wants to re-evaluate the building program in light of the budget crisis that's starving education and other services. Certainly, someone should.

Governor Steve Beshear Declares State Of Emergency To Ward Off Gasoline Price Gouging.

Read about the Governor's smart move, and see why it all makes sense since wholesale gas prices are at a 9 month LOW, while price gougers are busy raising retail gas prices.

You Have To Hand It To Wal-Mart. The Company Has Got CHUTZPA, Though Of The WRONG Kind.

Read more, or the local news.

Oh, and here's a link to the court's ruling.

American Airlines Continues To Act UnAmerican ...

... or is it acting American?

After all, is it not all about capitalism, no?

Watch the news below:

I Spoke TOO SOON, As Feds Arrest More Than 400 Sub Humans For Roles in Sub Prime Mortgage Fraud Schemes In Operation "Malicious Mortgage".

I had just asked when the Feds will arrest other sub humans in the sub prime mortgage mess, and viola!

Read the FBI's press release.

Here are excerpts:

From March 1 to June 18, 2008, Operation Malicious Mortgage resulted in 144 mortgage fraud cases in which 406 defendants were charged. Yesterday, 60 arrests were made in mortgage fraud-related cases in 15 districts. Charges in Operation Malicious Mortgage cases were brought in every region of the United States and in more than 50 judicial districts by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices based upon the law enforcement and investigative efforts of participating law enforcement agencies. The FBI estimates that approximately $1 billion in losses were inflicted by the mortgage fraud schemes employed in these cases.

In addition to fraud directly related to individual mortgages, the Department is committed to investigating and prosecuting cases of mortgage-related securities fraud. Today, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced an indictment against two senior managers of failed Bear Stearns hedge funds, charging Ralph Cioffi and Mathew Tannin with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. Cioffi was also charged with insider trading. The indictment alleges that the managers marketed the two funds as a low risk strategy, backed by a pool of debt securities such as mortgages. The indictment alleges that by March 2007, the managers believed the funds were in grave condition and at risk of collapse, but made misrepresentations to stave off investor withdrawal. The funds subsequently collapsed in the summer of 2007 resulting in approximately $1.4 billion in losses to investors.

Republicans In The U. S. Senate Have Successfully "Filibuster"ed Proposed Tax On Oil Companies' "Windfall Profits". I Say Good For Them!

The Democrats failed, 51-43, to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster and bring the energy package up for consideration.

The energy package would have taxed the windfall profits of the largest oil companies.

I am for punishing oil companies and oil speculators who price collude or break the law in some fashion. However, this is, obviously, not the intent of this tax.

The tax appears to be intended as punishment for the oil companies' for DARING to make profits or to pacify a concerned citizenry. As such, the tax idea is ill conceived, so the GOP's filibuster makes sense to me.

After we tax the profits, how do we PREVENT the gas companies from raising prices to recoup their tax losses.

Listen folks: You need to quit looking for scape goats.

The way out of this gas mess is to CONSERVE and seek ALTERNATIVES to crude oil.

Hello? (Knock, knock).

Is ANYONE in there?!

Can you hear me?

No Triple Crown For Big Brown, As The Race Horse Finishes LAST! Many People Are HURTING In Their Pockets Today, I'm Sure!!

Like BILLARY Clinton before Big Brown, the inevitable did NOT materialize and disappointed fans cry.

What happened? The Jockey claims he "had no horse"!:

Fen-Phen Diet Drug "Crooked" Lawyers Need To Have Their Assets Put On A Strict Diet By The Courts -- And More.

Read more here.

No need to have to re-hash the SORDID affair; it all "stinks to the high heavens."

Back In Kentucky, Gas Prices Reach $4.00 A Gallon In Bowling Green, As Feds Probe Oil Speculators.

Yes, you heard it right. Yesterday gas prices hit the $4:00 a gallon mark for regular unleaded in my neck of the woods. It may be time to bring out my bike from the garage and start pedaling.

In case if you are wondering, I don't believe we'll see cheap gas prices anymore in my lifetime (gas is about $10.00 per gallon in Europe).

While I opine that we must do more to conserve energy and find alternative sources of energy so that we won't go to war in the Middle East to guard our oil sources or send our President to Saudi Arabia on a "pretty please" mission for more oil, I welcome the news that the Feds have being probing oil speculators for the past six months.

Attacking our energy problems as I have described above, will help us get rid of the three headed monster slowly devouring our economy.

Rupert Murdoch: "Barack Obama Will Win The Election". On John McCain: "I Think He Has A Lot Of Problems." WOW.

Here's a peek:

Rupert Murdoch -- Chairman of News Corp, new WSJ owner, and longtime torchbearer for conservative politics -- said this about Barack Obama: "He is a rock star. It's fantastic" "I love what he is saying about education." "I don't think he will win Florida.....but he will win in Ohio and the election". "I am anxious to meet him." "I want to see if he will walk the walk."

About the presumptive Republican nominee, Murdoch said, "McCain is a friend of mine. He's a patriot. But he's unpredicatble. Doesn't seem to know much about the economy. He has been in Congress a long time, and you have to make a lot of compromises. So what's he really stand for?... I think he has a lot of problems."

Wal Mart Has A Change Of Heart, Drops Lawsuit Against Cancer Patient, Deborah Shank.

You can read the story here.

Wal Mart has a heart after all.

***** As I CORRECTLY predicted here, a REQUIEM was what was heard as "gaming" is DEAD for this session! *****

Read my prediction here, and read the story by our friends at Pol Watchers.

Now let the finger pointing begin.

Feel FREE to come back for more enlightening predictions.