Its only taken a couple of years but it looks like we are finally going to take a few small measures to protect consumers over the benefit of large financial institutions. I for one, doubt that we’ll ever be able to make any laws with teeth until and unless we change the ability of special interest groups and lobbyists from influencing our law makers via cash.  That said, let’s take a look at the highlights of the bill.

Consumer Help

1. Your free credit report comes with an actual score this time!

2. Debit card swipe fees will be limited to save you some cash.

3. A consumer agency inside the Federal Reserve is being created to stop unfair practices in consumer loans.

4. Protection from lenders and yourself – no more unverified income loans.

5. The unemployed will get some mortgage help.

6. Tougher rules on those who sell Fixed-equity annuities

Breaking the Banks

1. New 10-member council to keep an eye out for major problems in the system.

2. The ability to break up big banks that threaten the system.

3. Greater checks on the Fed

4. “Skin in the Game” – if a bank sell a mortgage back security, you have to keep some of them to ensure you aren’t selling junk.

5. The banks have to pay for the bill! 19 Billion

Other Important Measures

1. Derivative regulation and forcing open derivative trading

2. Spinning off Swaps

3. Independent credit ratings – separate the ratings agencies and the firms needing ratings.

4. Watching executive pay

BNet writes about 7 Proven Ways to Steal Winning Ideas which is a great way to get started in a line of business where the market has already been established.

I don’t know about you, but dropping call after call on AT&T is starting to wear on me. Perhaps it’s time to join the masses and join the wave of android adopters instead of the iPhone.

I guess when the primary revenue driver is a dying medium going radical is a good idea: Playboy goes 3-D.

Is it really possible for a single person to crush so many? Well that’s the latest word on the stock market free fall from last week.

Funny comic book take on what we all do with social media. 8 Websites You Need to Stop Building.

“The Gulf appears to be bleeding.”

The scale of this disaster cannot be overstated. It will be as far reaching as anything we’ve encountered in this country outside of a war, in my opinion. President Obama has said it’s “a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.” Think about it for a few minutes and you begin to realize that this isn’t just BP losing money, or gas prices rising,  or the loss of life on the rig, or polluting the environment. Though each of those things is important to recognize.

Do you like shrimp? Be prepared to pay a lot more for it. Roughly half of the nation’s shrimp is harvested in the Gulf. Fishermen across the states that border the Gulf are losing their livelihood for years. Clean up from disasters this large take years, and fish will be covered in oil which means reproduction problems in addition to widespread death of animals. I live in Baltimore, Maryland. Maryland Blue Crabs have been a staple; a local custom for years. People come from all over and eat our crabs. The dirty secret is that for years we’ve been importing the majority of our crabs from fishermen in Louisiana. Crab season begins in May. And just at the onset of the season, a ban is now in effect in the Gulf – no fishing allowed. That means that restaurants in Baltimore could be affected by the Gulf oil spill.

I’ve read reports on the Business Insider that the current rate of gushing oil is like losing an Exxon Valdez every three days. Let that sink in for a minute. We are still cleaning up after that mess.

Think about tourism in the Gulf. Swimming in the Gulf might be prohibited.
Some expect the oil to get into the gulf stream and head up the east coast.
Below is a map of where the spill is today and where its expected to get to by the end of today.

Fast Company was asked to test drive the new Chevrolet Volt on a rainy New York City afternoon. Watch the video and try to hear the car—it’s virtually silent.

Read full Chevrolet Volt article by at Fast Company.

Millions of people who are living off of unemployment benefits are in for a rude awakening.

While the Democrats were busy celebrating their healthcare victory, apparently too busy to even notice anything else that was going on, “a Republican slipped into the chamber to move a bill that would extend soon-to-expire enhanced unemployment benefits—paid for with $10 billion in unused funds from the stimulus bill,” reports the Huffington Post.

The Democrats want to extend unemployment using money not committed to the stimulus.

The Republicans want to extend benefits with stimulus money so we don’t have to spend any more money on top of the billions we’re already spending.

The Democrats claim that the Republicans are retaliating for passing health care. The Republicans claim that the Democrats are simply spending too much money. The unemployed are going to lose their benefits.

And Congress has left the building.

Congress has adjourned for their two-week “spring break” without coming to an agreement on the unemployment benefits extension. Even though they have made assurances that any bill, once passed, will take effect retroactively, it’s still going to hurt millions of people that are missing those checks and disrupt every single state unemployment agency. On “April 5 laid-off workers will lose their eligibility for extra ‘tiers’ of Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which provides up to 53 weeks of federally-funded unemployment checks on top of state-funded benefits. Newly unemployed workers will also lose their eligibility for subsidized COBRA health insurance,” states the Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, on Wall Street, JP Morgan Chase released a report stating that these unemployment extensions are actually contributing to the unemployment rate—that because people have benefits they aren’t looking for jobs. Interesting theory, yet if you take the total number of jobs lost and the number of new jobs created, those numbers won’t quite match up. Add in all of the young adults graduating and entering the workforce with older Americans are staying in their jobs instead of retiring… and you might find that there simply aren’t enough jobs for all of the people.

Also, JP Morgan Chase people have jobs. They work for JP Morgan Chase.

As Judy Conti, lobbyist for the National Employment Law Project, stated in the Huffington Post, “It’s absolute hooey.”

Everything feels expensive during a recession.

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Yesterday I got a letter telling me that my census was going to be coming in the mail next week. I asked around. It turns out that everyone I asked got this letter.

I don’t know how much it costs to send letters to everyone in the country but I do know that it can’t be cheap. Besides the postage, you have to pay the people to write the letters, collate address databases, manage the project, stuff envelopes and so on.

I would guess that sending this letter – just to tell everyone that another letter is coming — cost the government millions.

With all of our money problems, is that really necessary?

D.C. celebrates same-sex marriage! A huge non-demoninational wedding will take place on March 20th. Congratulations!!

Of course not everyone is happy about this. Catholic Charities is one organization who is already looking for loopholes.  According to the Washington Post, “Rather than provide health coverage to same-sex partners, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl decided to cut benefits for spouses of all future Catholic Charities employees, new spouses of current employees and existing spouses of current employees not already on the plan. Wuerl has said the benefits change is justifiable under Catholic teaching as long as the employees are paid a just wage.”

It may be “justifiable” but it doesn’t seem very Christian, now does it?

In other gay news… California state Senator Roy Ashburn was arrested for a DUI after leaving a gay club in Sacramento. That isn’t very interesting until you look at his anti-gay voting record.

Here is an overview from TalkingPointsMemo.com:

• “In 2006, he voted no on a measure to add material on the contributions of gay Americans who had contributed to the development of California or the United States
• In 2008 he voted against expanding anti-discrimination laws to include sexual discrimination.
• In 2009 he voted against a resolution to oppose Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage ballot question.
• Last September, he voted against recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages.
• That same month Ashburn opposed creating Harvey Milk Day, to honor the slain gay rights icon from San Francisco.”

That’s some serious denial!

By Libby Chase

I know that Jenna Bush being on NBC’s Today Show isn’t new.

However, when I saw her “covering” the Olympics last week, something snapped. And, yes, the Olympics are over, but unfortunately the layoffs in the media aren’t.

When the Today show decided to throw credentials, experience and common sense out of the window by hiring her in the first place, Jim Bell, the executive producer said, “[Bush] will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television’s top-rated morning news show.”

But getting to cover the Olympics is a big deal. That’s not a once-a-month education piece. A job like that takes a lifetime of hard work to get. If I were Meredith Vieira or Matt Lauer I would be pretty insulted. Hiring Jenna Bush is like saying “A monkey can do your job,” and then pretty much proving it.

I’m not the only one who thinks she’s… not great.

From USA Today, “We’re used to a little empty-headedness in the morning, but must it be contagious? Why turn four U.S. gold-medal skaters over to Jenna Bush Hager — who may be the sweetest girl on Earth, but whose TV skills don’t even rise to the level of amateurish?”

Good question.

This isn’t a rant because I didn’t like her Daddy’s politics. This is about people working their whole lives to get someplace just to be passed over because of a bad case of nepotism. At a time when journalists and reporters are being laid off left and right and news outlets are closing down, it is beyond unfair that someone with as little qualifications as Jenna Bush are picking up prime jobs.

Let’s just take a quick glance at the differences in experience: Meredith Vieira graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English from Tufts University. In 1975 she started as a news announcer for WORC radio in Worcester, Massachusetts, then moved to TV, working as a local reporter and anchor at WJAR-TV Providence. From 1979 to 1982 she was an investigative reporter at WCBS-TV in NYC.

• 1985–1989: West 57th news magazine
• 1989–1993: 60 Minutes correspondent
• 1992–1993: CBS Morning News co-anchor
• 1993–1997: Turning Point correspondent
• 1997–2006: The View moderator
• 2002–present: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
• 2006–present: Dateline NBC contributing anchor
• September 2006–present: Today co-host

Jenna Bush-Hager graduated from The University of Texas at Austin. Yeah, not quite a Tufts. But hey, she was a legacy member of Kappa Alpha Theta!!!! And, no, that’s not the smart one. She didn’t even do that on her own; her mother was a member first, paving her way. Oooh, wait, she does have media experience… her and her twin sister Barbara were both arrested for alcohol related charges—twice within five weeks.

After graduating she became a teacher. I do have a lot of respect for teachers.

Here is her entire resume:

• Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School
• Completed an internship for UNICEF’s Educational Policy Department
• Currently works as a reading coordinator at a school in Baltimore, Maryland.

Yes, she did publish two books but, come on if you’re the daughter of a President and you can’t get a book published you just haven’t tried. It isn’t the same as actually having to try and do it yourself—which is difficult. Let’s put it this way, she went on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, 20/20, and gave interviews to USA Today, The Washington Post and People magazine. In the book, the woman “Ana” was born with HIV, she had a hard life, raped, beaten, forced to live in a detention center and then she gets pregnant. Yes, it’s an interesting story and she did give her profits to UNICEF but there are lots of smart, strong women out there writing great, important books. And guess what? They don’t get asked to be on 20/20 or the Ellen DeGeneres show.

At least the Publisher’s Weekly review was honest, “It’s not a bad book, although I doubt it would be noticed, much less published, were it not for its White House author.”

The reviewer goes on to point out that, “Inspired by Ana’s resilience, Jenna hopes to motivate young readers to volunteer to help causes like Ana’s; in an appendix, she suggests canned-food drives, becoming a pen pal, tutoring, raising money for UNICEF. (Among dozens of ideas, writing to Congress or the White House does not figure.)

“So being a pen pal is more important than attempting to make policy change? Or does she just realize what the rest of us naively hope isn’t true, that neither the Congress nor the White House really listens.

“So white Jenna is suggesting we become “pen pals” her father “refused to fund UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, which promotes family planning (abortions are excluded), prevention of AIDS and HIV, reproductive health, safe motherhood and gender equality in access to education. The United States helped found UNFPA almost 40 years ago. But in 2002, the Bush administration claimed that UNFPA funded coercive abortions in China, and despite an investigation by the State Department that refuted the allegation that same year, and despite bipartisan protest, President Bush has since withheld a total of $195 million allocated by Congress to UNFPA. (To put this in context, 180 countries contributed last year, led by the Netherlands, which gave more than $75 million.) ”

 Jenna did nothing. She actually could have made a difference, she had a spotlight, she could have done something important and she failed. And the media that applauded her “passion” should have called her out for not really doing a damn thing.

Libby Chase is frustrated her more qualified friends are losing their jobs.

I live on the East Coast. We’re in the middle of our second blizzard this week. Presently, snow is falling all around me and we’re expecting to get 20 inches or more. Everything is shut down. It’s a state of emergency, which means we aren’t even allowed to drive.

The federal government is also home for the day. According to ABC News, “Office of Personnel Management chief John Berry, who decides when to close the federal government, has said each snow day costs taxpayers an estimated $100 million in work government employees don’t do.” That doesn’t include the additional cost of state and local governments, or snow removal.

With everyone at home, there is also the lost tax revenue from shoppers.  Read about the costs in this article from Reuters.