(V): It's not the job of the government to steal money from people and give it to others. That's Robin Hood's job.

(V): Why those clever Republicans! I wonder, why hasn't the left thought of doing that? Cudos to those intelligent and highly innovative Republicans for coming up with something entirely new. Maybe the left should try doing something like that.

Erik Telford, AFP's director of online strategy and a leading figure on the right in the deployment of the internet as a political tool, exhorted Tea Party members to attack politicians through their blogs.

"Pick your least favourite public official and beat the crap out of him every day," Telford told the audience. "It's fun, and people will start to notice and you will have a tremendous impact.

"The way to beat the left is to link more and more to one another and to link to articles that are in tune with our ideology and that will push the articles to the top of Google search.""

An idea funded by the Koch brothers

Drug and insurance companies say they are merely seeking to educate politicians and the public. But with industry lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill ‑ there are six registered healthcare lobbyists for every member of Congress ‑ a partner in the most powerful lobbying firm in Washington acknowledged that healthcare firms' money "has had a lot of influence" and that it is "morally suspect".

Reform groups say vast spending, and the threat of a lot more being poured into advertisements against the administration, has helped drug companies ensure there will be no cap on the prices they charge for medicines ‑ one of the ways the White House had hoped to keep down surging healthcare costs.

Insurance companies have done even better as the new legislation will prove a business bonanza. It is not only likely to kill off the threat of public health insurance, which threatened to siphon off customers by offering lower premiums and better coverage, but will force millions more people to take out private medical policies or face prosecution.

"It's a total victory for the health insurance industry," said Dr Steffie Woolhander, a GP, professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Programme (PNHP).

"What the bill has done is use the coercive power of the state to force people to hand their money over to a private entity which is the private insurance industry. That is not what people were promised."

PNHP blames a political process it says is corrupted by millions of dollars poured into the election campaigns of members of Congress and influencing the discourse about health reform by funding advertising campaigns, supposedly independent studies and patients rights organisations that press the industry's interests.

Corruption in washington approved by those who say it is wrong.

.. never happens

I'm on disability now from AT&T. Three years ago I was making $150,000 a year as a Global Account Manager for Cingular, then I had to go on disability shortly before AT&T took over. I paid for the best health coverage available and also always paid for supplemental disability insurance. I've been on disability and under medical treatment since then. You'd think with my career path, income and savings, and my commitment to always get the most and best insurance I could I should be in great shape, right? I'm now completely broke, I have no retirement savings left, can't pay for my kids college, and my copay on just ONE of my prescriptions has gone from $150 to $1254 for a one-month supply, so I can't even afford the prescription I need to stay alive.

I don't care how good your job is, how secure it is, how great your insurance is, or how much you have in savings and retirement accounts, YOU ARE NOT COVERED. The contractors your company works with (i.e., United Healthcare for Medical Ins., Hewett for Benefits Mgmt., Sedgewick for Disability Mgmt., CVS for drug benefits, etc.) will pull every trick in the book to reduce/deny coverage. Their systems are set up to force you to monitor a constant barrage of paperwork and forms, and if you miss any required response notices, they will permanently drop you from benefits/coverage, and you're screwed, forever.

WASHINGTON — The largest medical insurers and drug companies spent 41% more on lobbying this year as Congress began debate on an overhaul of health care, which may include a public insurance plan the industries oppose. The largest medical insurers and drug companies spent 41% more on lobbying this year as Congress began debate on an overhaul of health care, which may include a public insurance plan the industries oppose.

I say it was not Obama that caused companies to increase insurance costs in the USA, but the extra money the Health companies are spending on making sure they profit while people live in pain, go bankrupt.. or die.

This is great that people in America (practising nimby's) love their neighbours!!

"Over the Labor Day weekend, I went to a number of events in the Hamptons. At all of them, Obama was discussed. At none of them - that's none - was he defended. That was remarkable. After all, sitting around various lunch and dinner tables were mostly Democrats. Not only that, some of them had been vociferous Obama supporters, giving time and money to his election effort. They were all disillusioned.

Let me call the roll. I am talking about are writers and editors, lawyers and shrinks, Wall Street tycoons and freelance photographers, hedge funders and academics, run-of-the-mill Democrats and Democratic activists. They were all politically sophisticated, and just a year ago some of them were still vociferous Obama supporters. No more."


So you see libs, I (and others on here - conservatives) were right about Obama ALL ALONG. And finally there are some honest liberals that are not only beginning to see the truth about Obama, they are honest enough to state what they now believe. He's a huge disappointment.

But sadly, some of you libs are stuck in the rut and refused to come out.

"I was hours early for a flight and stuck in a relatively small terminal crammed with people. Only one area in the whole wing had empty seats; an unused gate that contained a TV blaring the CNN broadcast of Obama's Labor Day speech at full volume.

So it was either sit underneath a full-volume broadcast of our fearless president bellowing out his latest hollow promises, or the hellish alternative: retreat to gates full of screaming five year-old children, all of them jacked up on sugar and bawling their eyes out because it was the end of Labor Day weekend and their cruel parents were dragging them home from Disney world.

I ended up choosing the screaming children."

(I don't have to name the source, all I have to say is "various souces")

"Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.

The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term. "

gotta love it when even a liberal lib sees the light!

"Massive government spending hasn't helped us now and massive government spending did not get us out of the great depression. In fact, government interference in the marketplace and New Deal policies extended the depression by seven years and hurt millions."

(V): ya made it up then. Ok, we get it.

Übergeek 바둑이: OK, that makes sense and I was thinking too of the stress under the Roman Empire. There are probably cultures where factors that lead to depression etc are much less. What do we know about them? I'm thinking of Hawaiian culture. I have a friend and we joke that he's always on Hawaiian time (born and raised there) and he takes things in stride. For some cultures, "I'll be there Tuesday" means whenever I get there, it will still be Tuesday. In my world, it's "I'll be there on Tuesday at 4pm" Deadlines, competition, evaluations, on and on. No wonder we're all going nuts!

I wonder if that's why some in Australia went on a "walk about." Just to get away, no deadline, no pressures, no plans, just come what may.

Übergeek 바둑이: Right, as if the corps using dodgy chemicals are going to do that. They will use what is cheaper until they either get told to change (like with CFC's) or... someone manages to prove in court that the chemicals are harmful to the organic chemistry of our bodies and/or the environment.

After watching a company and one of it's so called new wave of drugs that is supposed to be helpful to many people be found to be not or harmful, many side effects buried in reams of results, or not told to the respective government regulator... and yet sold as the next best thing to sliced bread.

"video game legislation failure"

Never gonna really work. Too many factors outside regulation to make any real effort except branding an age on it worthwhile.

Iamon lyme: Actually I do hold myself responsible for both my actions and my feelings. After all, feelings follow (are caused by) actions and not the other way around.

One of the big lies out there is that we have no control over how we feel.. that's a big old load of alien hooey. It's why so many people who don't really need it (some people do need it) get suckered into taking anti-depressants. And speaking of aliens.. when global economics melt down into an incomprehensible mess, that's when the aliens will make their move.

(V): wow, that's depressing.

I suppose if someone isn't already bummed out, there are plenty of facts and figures to remedy that situation.

I'm not only not responsible for my actions, I'm also not responsible for how I feel.

Artful Dodger:
> What's the biggest factor that makes today so different?

This is the real finding in all this. We are no different than we always were. We had insanity, paranoia, depression and all the mental ills of our modern era in all eras of human history.

Think ofthe Roman Empire and its depravity and insanity. Or the depressed artists and philosophers of the past.

War, famine, imperialism, fascism, political crises, economic crises, manipulation of the masses. They have been there since we started farming and building cities.

The great difference today is that we are aware of it on a global scale. Modern means of communication make the insanity apparent almost instantly.

We also have other factors such as moderm pollution, which is different from pollution in the past. Prior to the 20th century pollution took the form of bacteria (due to poor sanitation and dranage systems) and lead poisoning (lead was heavily used in glass, ceramics, and piping for running water). Today our pollution is much more rich on organic chemicals that interact directly with our DNA (it is why ther is so much cancer today). For sure much of that pollution is damaging our brains too. In the past depression and insanity were heavily linked to lead posioning (Beethoven and Van Gogh are good examples). Now we know better and have eliminated a lot of the lead in our immediate environment. However, aromatic hydrocarbons from improper combustion of fossil fuels are everywhere. We have plasticizers in plastics, chloramine in water, pesticides and herbicides, antibiotics in food, etc. Many of these substances do things to our bodies that we don't even know about, and mass consumption means that just about everyone is consuming these substances.

Let's add tot his the high pace of modern life. High expectations of wealth and consumption add to our daily stress. We are bombarded with mass advertising, sensationalistic news headlines, images of war and violence, pornography, the constant insanity of stock and financial markets, the uncertainty of an ever faltering economy, etc. These things add up in our psyche. If a person is well balanced and healthy, they can absorb all the stressors and release them somehow. But if the surrounding chemical environment has somehow affected the brain, all the stressors can add up to many pathological psychiatric conditions. It comes as no surprise that 25% of the world will suffer from some mental health problem at some point.

Is there a solution? It would probably require a lot of research on all the factors that lead to these mental health problems, then aiming at eliminating each of these factors one by one (like we did with lead). Then it would need a rethinking of mass consumption and the use of chemical commodities that damage our bodies. We would have to make a more peaceful world and take measures to stop exposing our children and youth to violence and pornography. Considering the lack of willingness in our governments to change anything (as we saw recently with the video game legislation failure), change will be slow.

(V): such as?

Or did you make that up?

Übergeek 바둑이: But this has nearly always been the case. In the history of the world, the above statement could have been said at many times in our history. What's the biggest factor that makes today so different?

Data from various reports by medical analysts do confirm a link between being uninsured (or with low insurance) and mental health problems. That this is related to the lack of treatment for physical health problems, of a long or severe enough nature to have an impact on that persons quality of life.

Gotta love the lobbyists who pay for the current health system in the US to carry on so they can profit!!

Aganju: That explains the motivation for making stupid decisions. Many of them are motivated by only a desire to excercise control and to keep their jobs.

The argument here doesn't hinge on no government vs complete government control. Government control and regulation are a good thing up to a point, but beyond that point it just gums up the works and doesn't help free enterprise to do what it naturally does all by itself. As I see it the real problem is when government tries to excercise too much control by inserting itself into the market, as though their involvement will somehow help a process that works best if left alone.

Übergeek 바둑이: Figures from other organisations put the figure of people with mental illness higher, being 1 in 3 of all Americans. Stating that the NIMH figures are based on old data.

Though the danger through Victorian style stigmata and the lack of universal health care makes these figures more on a concern then in Europe, as many will never be diagnosed and/or given the treatment and care they deserve.

... Lifetime prevalence estimates put the US figures at about 57%

Or if you work in the CIA 100%

Aganju: George Carlin sums up politicians and the myth of electing them very well.... The masters just use them as a means of population control.

Artful Dodger:

"Mental Illness disorders are prevalent in the United States. Approximately 26 percent of Americans 18 and older, that is one in four adults suffer from a diagnosed mental disorder. Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15-44. It is estimated that many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a time."

"If mental illness statistics compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO) is to be believed around 25 percent of the world population suffers from some or the other mental illness at some point of life. This and other such statistics on mental health problems reveal how severe this problem has become over the period of time."
As for the cost in the USA:

"The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) conservatively estimates the total costs associated with serious mental illness, those disorders that are severely debilitating and affect about 6 percent of the adult population, to be in excess of $300 billion per year. This estimate is based on 2002 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Social Security Administration, and findings from the NIMH-funded National Comorbidity Survey – Replication (NCS-R). "

Obviously Europe is not alone in this. The world-wide estimated are at 25%, and the USA at 26%. That makes the USA no different from the average.

Our modern life is driven by overconsumption, overwork, war, economic crisis and political crisis. It comes as no surprise our societies are a mess.

Nearly 40 percent of Europeans suffer mental illness
By Kate Kelland | Reuters – Sun, Sep 4, 2011...

LONDON (Reuters) - Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.

With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed, mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden -- measured in the hundreds of billions of euros -- as sufferers become too unwell to work and personal relationships break down.

"Mental disorders have become Europe's largest health challenge of the 21st century," the study's authors said.

Any government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.

Aganju: Yes, you are correct. And I don't see anything in Washington changing unless people start demanding and pressuring their reps. Those pinheads live in another world.

Artful Dodger: You are starting from the wrong assumption. Logically, their primary target is to get reelected. That's how the game rules are written, and that's how they play it.
Any other 'targets' (general happyness, full employment, world control, whatever) are secondary, and are at best collateral.

Iamon lyme:

What's interesting is the government's explanation that by spending more money and then putting that money back into the economy, the economy is stimulated and people then spend, hire, invest, etc. When that happens, more taxes are generated and the government makes back it's initial investment and then some!

But then why are we so far it debt as a nation?

Because Keynesian economics doesn't work. Now why can't those pinheads in Washington figure that out?

Iamon lyme: Or, I suppose I could've just said "good principles work!"

Vikings: The fact that the government can spend more that it has and keep going is not spin. It's the reason some people want government work, because they can make more than they can in a comprable private secter job, along with having more job security. A public secter job can only go belly up if the tax revenue for that particular job dries up, or if the private secter itself is damaged to the point where it can no longer provide tax revenue for any government job.. hopefully we can pull back before it reaches that point, but it is that point which is precisely what we are being warned about. We are not being warned about not being able to support someones pet project, we are being warned about a complete system wide shutdown. Killing the goose that lays all of them golden eggs won't get ya anymore of them eggs.. know what I mean?

The problem as I see it is not that there is no solution, the problem seems to be that people have been fooled into believing it can't be corrected because of the scale of the problem. What works on a small scale will work on a larger scale. It's worked before, so why all the confusion over what needs to be done?

Vikings: good principles work!

Best $100.00 investment I ever made, made an $8,000.00 difference in my net worth last year

and I didn't have to rely on the government or business owners to do it, how can that be?

Artful Dodger: yes but he is a just a christian right wing self made multimillionaire, so I am sure that those numbers are just spin




there now no else can try that approach

"If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand." - Dave Ramsey

Iamon lyme: a coconut is white meat - like fish

Artful Dodger: Is the banana a fruit or a veggy..

I'm trying to figure this one out which without googling it. I think fruits have the seeds on the inside of the fruit itself, and veggies have their seeds somewhere else. The carrot makes its seeds up on the green part.. not sure, but I think that's right. Same with radishes. I remember having a garden with carrots and radishes once, but neglected it. I think eventually they both produced seeds up on the leafy part of the plant. The potato has its seeds on the skin.. again, I'm not sure but that seems right. The "eyes" of the potato (on the skin) are the seeds, aren't they?

So I'm going to say that fruits have their seeds inside of the fruit itself, while vegetables and grasses produce the seeds on the leafy parts of the plant.. or on the outside of the 'meaty' part of the plant. So that would make the banana a fruit.. ???

What about coconuts?

(V): Typical government interference with free market forces. In many instances banks were pressured into making bad loans by government policy makers. Ask Barney Frank, he'll tell you, (actually no, he won't) And now they turn around to sue those banks because, well, a bad loan is a bad loan, no matter who is telling you to do it. A real estate lady tried talking me into getting a Fanny May loan so I could start making payments on a condo that I wasn't even interested in. ?? I said thanks, but no thanks, I wasn't comfortable borrowing money from an institution that essentially existed because of some governmental policy. She looked at me like I was a stupid rube, but that's okay because a few months later the morgage crises hit the fan.. well, something hit the fan, I was just glad I wasn't anywhere near the blowout.. know what ah mean?

(V): It's a cookbook! It's a cookbook!

Hey (V)ern, it's Earnest!

I knew it, the aliens are trying to fatten up our children! And look.. it's working! Perhaps working too well, because fighting aliens with clogged arteries could very well work in our favor.

US and UK spy agencies built close ties with their Libyan counterparts during the so-called War on Terror, according to documents discovered at the office of Col Gaddafi's former spy chief.

The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli. The UK's MI6 also apparently gave the Gaddafi regime details of dissidents.

The documents, found by Human Rights Watch workers, have not been seen by the BBC or independently verified.....

.....The BBC's Kevin Connolly in Tripoli says the documents illuminate a short period when the Libyan intelligence agency was a trusted and valued ally of both MI6 and the CIA, with the tone of exchanges between agents breezy and bordering on the chummy.

Human Rights Watch accused the CIA of condoning torture.

"It wasn't just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence. The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it's very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves," said Peter Bouckaert of HRW.

The papers outline the rendition of several suspects, including one that Human Rights Watch has identified as Abdel Hakim Belhaj, known in the documents as Abdullah al-Sadiq, who is now the military commander of the anti-Gaddafi forces in Tripoli.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said: "It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats."

The documents also reveal details about the UK's relationship with the Gaddafi regime. One memo, dated 18 March 2004 and with the address "London SE1", congratulates Libya on the arrival of Mr Belhaj. It states "for the urgent personal attention of Musa Kusa" and is headed "following message to Musa in Tripoli from Mark in London", according to the Financial Times. Its authenticity could not be independently verified.

The UK intelligence agency apparently helped to write a speech for Col Gaddafi in 2004, when the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair was encouraging the colonel to give up his weapons programme. And British officials also insisted that Mr Blair's famous 2004 meeting with Col Gaddafi should be in his Bedouin tent, according to the UK's Independent newspaper, whose journalists also discovered the documents.

"[The prime minister's office is] keen that the prime minister meet the leader in his tent," the paper quotes a memo from an MI6 agent as saying. "I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is the journalists would love it."

In another memo, also seen by the Independent, UK intelligence appeared to give Tripoli details of a Libyan dissident who had been freed from jail in Britain. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague played down the revelations, telling Sky News that they "relate to a period under the previous government so I have no knowledge of those, of what was happening behind the scenes at that time".

Mr Blair and US President George W Bush lobbied hard to bring Col Gaddafi out of international isolation in the years after the 9/11 attacks, as Libya moved to normalise relations with former enemies in the West.

And of course, the most controversial moment came when Ronald Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, proposed classifying ketchup as a vegetable to meet dietary requirements while also slashing costs.

Both federal and local officials have been trying to improve the school lunch programme, so it is more nutritious for students and the food is more liked by them. But it's a massive undertaking. The National School Lunch programme in the United States feeds more than 28 million students in 98,000 schools across the country.

Schools also provide breakfast in some districts to low-income children and, since 1998, the federal government has also given schools money to provide snacks to students who participate in after-school programmes.

In 2003, the US Department of Agriculture said the school lunch programme cost $7.1bn (£3.7bn). The menus vary greatly from district to district, but they must meet the applicable recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. These say no more than 30% of an individual's calories should come from fat, and less than 10% from saturated fat.

School lunches are also required to provide one-third of the recommended dietary allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.

The food is mostly packaged, with some critics complaining that lunchrooms are merely dumping grounds for agricultural surplus.

Dr Walter Willett, head of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, says of the foods offered to schools by the Department of Agriculture: "Their foods tend to be at the bottom of the barrel in terms of healthy nutrition."

A 2001 Department of Agriculture study showed that 80% of schools offered menu items that could be combined to meet dietary guidelines.

But more than one-fifth of lunch programmes offered commercial fast food, and most schools had vending machines. The study found that students often made bad choices.

But there are attempts at broader reforms.

A new programme partners schools with local small farmers to bring more fresh fruit and vegetables to students. And some states are pushing to ban vending machines in an attempt to keep the students from subsisting on snacks and junk food.

Übergeek 바둑이: Green tomato's ... fruit or veg!!

Übergeek 바둑이: yes, it's all about context

Forum for discussing local and world politics and issues.

it's an issue

Here are some "fruity" vegetables:
Tomato
Tomatillo
Egg plant
Avocado (eaten both as fruit and vegetable)
Bell peppers
Chili peppers
Cucumber
Squash
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Chayote (aka christophene)
Snow peas
String beans

There are probably many others. These are what comes to mind at the moment!

The question is, are they political?

While Energy Department officials steadfastly vouched for Solyndra -- even after an earlier round of layoffs raised eyebrows -- other federal agencies and industry analysts for months questioned the viability of the company. Peter Lynch, a longtime solar industry analyst, told ABC News the company's fate should have been obvious from the start.

"Here's the bottom line," Lynch said. "It costs them $6 to make a unit. They're selling it for $3. In order to be competitive today, they have to sell it for between $1.5 and $2. That is not a viable business plan."

Other flags have been raised about how the Energy Department pushed the deal forward. The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News and ABC disclosed that Energy Department officials announced the support for Solyndra even before final marketing and legal reviews were in. To government auditors, that move raised questions about just how fully the department vetted the deal -- and assessed its risk to taxpayers -- before signing off.

Propaganda, American-style
by Noam Chomsky

The Vietnam War is a classic example of America's propaganda system. In the mainstream media--the New York Times, CBS, and so on-- there was a lively debate about the war. It was between people called "doves" and people called "hawks." The hawks said, "If we keep at it we can win." The doves said, "Even if we keep at it, it would probably be too costly for use, and besides, maybe we're killing too many people." Both sides agreed on one thing. We had a right to carry out aggression against South Vietnam. Doves and hawks alike refused to admit that aggression was taking place. They both called our military presence in Southeast Asia the defense of South Vietnam, substituting "defense" for "aggression" in the standard Orwellian manner. In reality, we were attacking South Vietnam just as surely as the Soviets later attacked Afghanistan.

Consider the following facts. In 1962 the U.S. Air Force began direct attacks against the rural population of South Vietnam with heavy bombing and defoliation . It was part of a program intended to drive millions of people into detention camps where, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, they would be "protected" from the guerrillas they were supporting--the "Viet Cong," the southern branch of the former anti-French resistance (the Vietminh). This is what our government calls aggression or invasion when conducted by some official enemy. The Saigon government had no legitimacy and little popular support, and its leadership was regularly overthrown in U.S.-backed coups when it was feared they might arrange a settlement with the Viet Cong. Some 70,000 "Viet Cong" had already been killed in the U.S.-directed terror campaign before the outright U.S. invasion took place in 1972.

Like the Soviets in Afghanistan, we tried to establish a government in Saigon to invite us in. We had to overthrow regime after regime in that effort. Finally we simply invaded outright. That is plain, simple aggression. But anyone in the U.S. who thought that our policies in Vietnam were wrong in principle was not admitted to the discussion about the war. The debate was essentially over tactics. .......

US authorities are to sue 17 major banks for losses on mortgage-backed investments that cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said it was taking action against banks including Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC. The agency says they misrepresented the quality of the mortgages they sold during the housing bubble.

The values plunged as the US was engulfed in the financial crisis.

The FHFA oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two firms lost more than $30bn (£18.5bn), partly because of their investments in the subprime mortgages, and were bailed out by the US government.

Since the rescues, US taxpayers have spent more than $140bn to keep the firms afloat. Other banks facing action include Royal Bank of Scotland, Nomura, Citigroup, and Societe Generale.

A spokesman for RBS said: "We believe we have substantial and credible legal and factual defences to these claims and will defend them vigorously." Speculation in recent days that the FHFA was about to launch legal action had led to falls in US bank share prices.

The FHFA said in a statement that there had been "improper actions by the firms and individuals".

"Based on our review, FHFA alleges that the loans had different and more risky characteristics than the descriptions contained in the marketing and sales materials provided to the Enterprises for those securities," the statement said.

Major banks are already negotiating with the attorneys general of all 50 states to settle mortgage abuses.

here's where he lives

http://www.realtor.com/property-search/Boynton-Beach_FL/Tom-A-Toe-Rd?source=web

Iamon lyme: Now is a banana a fruit or a veggie?

By the way, I knew a Tom Toe once. Middle name Andrew.

Tom A. Toe

kinda cute

Artful Dodger: That's too technical for me. I just can't wrap my head around the idea of a "Fruity Vegetable".

My 9th grade English teacher could eat a raw tomato, and without so much of a drop of it falling onto his desk. He would eat his sack lunch during our study period.. it was hard to study though, because you just had to watch this guy eating his lunch. He'd shove 3 or four saltines into his mouth, and then take another bite of tomato. During the summer he was a carpenter, and had built his own house. I visited him once at his home, and was amazed at what looked like an expensive home in an area where most of the high rollers lived.. on a high school english teachers salary! But like I said, he worked all year round and had built his own house, so I can see how he was able to do it. He was also a high school track coach, and ran with the guys when they went for their long distance runs. All this, and he didn't appear to have a high opinion of himself. That didn't stop a lot of us kids from having a high opinion of him.