The-Asterisk

I am still stuck on this Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) phenomenom. I listened to a bit of Randi Rhodes on XM Radio today and Nicole Sandler was filling in for her. Nicole was talking to John Nichols of The Nation magazine about the growth of the Occupy Movement. It was quite funny listening to them talk about how the "Occupants" are willing to stay out there throughout the winter. These people are so righteous that they are willing to suffer to make their point. Awwww..... I thought about starting my own Occupy movement, but then I remembered that I have to work the rest of the year. Damn... So, they talked more and more about the income inequities and how the 1% have all of the money and the two of them actually said that the reason that the 99% are so bad off is because the 1% took all of the money. Seriously, they said that on the air. Rather than discuss macro-economics and how wealth is both created and destroyed by the whim of the market, I was curious if I could be

Asterisk note: Each blog posting I do, I swear that it will be short, then it ends up looking like a manifesto. So, here is another attempt at brevity (maybe that is why I tweet and blog... sort of the yin and yang of modern communications.) Much has been said of the American Dream lately, especially in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests that are sweeping across the country and the world. Sweeping every place, except apparently, where these protestors are encamping. I spoke in an earlier posting about the American Dream and what it is. I then read a piece in the DogWalkBlog about the haves and the have nots. It has made me reconsider what qualifies as the American Dream. Using the same logic that I use to mock the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who deign to represent ALL of the black Americans, who am I to foist my idea of what The Dream looks like upon all Americans? Like the song Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, is The Dream still a house, a whit

Recently in the US there has been quite a controversy over the issue of debit card transaction fees. These fees are the money that the "system" (Visa/MasterCard, banks, clearinghouses, etc.) charge to process a transaction at the point of sale. Previously, it involved a rather complex set of rules to apportion the amount that the system would charge to move money from the purchaser's bank account to the business' account. Take a look at this page which describes some of what is involved with a merchant account, then try to figure out what a transaction will cost you if Visa handles the transaction. On that Visa link, don't you just love the term 'reimbursement'? It sounds like you are getting something back, doesn't it? Actually it is the amount that Visa reimburses the card-holding financial institution for the transaction. Also, it looks like a complicated government tax form, doesn't it? So complicated that you can never actually figure ou