Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Observations - May 2008

MAY 30, 2008 --

Top Picks for the Next Administration?

If the next president is John McCain

Perhaps the man he should nominate

Is Barack Obama a choice quite plain

To be popular for secretary of state

And if the White House Barack Obama should win

Perhaps there would be common sense

In his also going bi-partisan

With John McCain named as secretary of defense


MAY 30, 2008 --

What Influence?

The New York Times LPR has read

Claims the Web a great deal of influence

That assertion being said

Why such massive incongruence

When it comes to LPR

And its campaign against credit card usury

Or have we gone so far

As to accept interest-related penury

This writer remains in a fix

As to sums that have been lent

The interest rate would be at six

If LPR could affect the percent


MAY 30, 2008 --

Financial Tough Love …

To get by to live I had to sell stocks

And now I cannot afford lox

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke

You've got me taking out my hanky

Sobbing there is nothing left for hocks


MAY 30, 2008 --

An obviousity, not an oddity?

Isn't it by now apparent that when the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates to raise stock prices, stock prices will go up to some extent, and also oil prices, at which point the stock prices drop again?  When will gas prices really fall? LPR predicts when people cannot afford to buy any gas at all.

Consider, please the performance, past couple of months of GE.

The GE Building at Rockefeller Center

MAY 20, 2008 --

Bullish on bicycles?

LPR heard a news sound-bite of Sen. Obama say that gas prices are high because of demand in China, adding he expects prices will remain high.  That, to LPR, is a rationalization (there being no reported oil refinery breakdowns lately), not a plan to restore the economy with lower fuel costs.  Perhaps Sen. McCain will have a chance to be president after all -- if he indicates leadership in the energy war on our economy.


MAY 20, 2008 --

On Opening My HSBC Credit Card Statement With a 31.99%  Interest Rate And Others Almost as Predatory …

I am certain had this been done in the past

Our credit cards  representing usurious culture

The great cartoonist Thomas Nast

Would have turned them into one financial vulture

David R. Zukerman,
Squeezed by HSBC, Discover, Chase, Bank of America, and Washington Mutual.


MAY 20, 2008 --

LPR Thanks …

LPR prints this image to thank the cashier at this diner for the quarters that made it possible to park at a meter and not get another parking ticket.

MAY 20, 2008 --

They Reported the Broadway and Writers' Strikes, Didn't They?

Workers at a rehabilitation center home  in the Bronx have been on strike seeking health benefits themselves, since February 20, LPR mentions this because it has gotten little attention in the media. Indeed would a strike of support workers at at a facility of aged and infirm residents continue for three months if it got attention in the media?  Or is this indication just how forgotten the residents at such facilities are, but for the people who tend to them, and continue to do so, crossing the picket line.

On strike since February 20, 2008

MAY 12, 2008 --

Note to LPRistas:

The LPR Campaign for an Internet Response Against the destructive and unconscionable economic assault on the middle class will continue next LPR by asking, among other things, where the legal community has been as credit card companies cite contracts of adhesion and contracts with unconscionable terms to defend vastly disproportionate penalties for alleged late payments, which also lead to late fees that by themselves might likely alleged losses.

And Republicans might ask themselves if the ineffective response from the Bush administration to the economimc assault on the middle class is aimed at putting Democrats back in the White House. More after May 20.


MAY 5, 2008 --

Maybe it's time to stop …

… racing fillies against stallions.  Indeed, shouldn't this lesson have been learned in 1975 when Ruifian broke down in a match race against Foolish Pleasure -- or was the lesson of that tragedy just no more stallion-filly match races?  (Or no more match races at all?) But, as of now, Big Brown, Kentucky Derby winner goes to the Preakness and Eight Belles, gets cremated after finishing second and returning 10.60 and 6.40. Kent Desormeaux, the jockey of Big Brown, according to one report, was quoted after the race saying his horse showed his heart while Eight Belles --"showed you her life for our enjoyment today." Including ten bucks or six and change, of course.