"It IS Your Attitude" keeps getting on......

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGLwww.LuisLobo.Biz

THE LAW OF EXPECTATION

by Brian Tracy

I've found that whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

When you confidently expect good things to happen, good things usually happen to you. If you expect something negative to happen, you are usually not disappointed.

Your expectations have an inordinate effect on the people around you as well. What you expect from people and situations determines your attitude toward them more than any other factor, and people reflect your attitude right back at you, like a mirror, whether positive or negative.

Dr. Robert Rosenthal of Harvard conducted dozens of controlled experiments over the years to test the power of the expectations of teachers on student performance. In his landmark book, "Pygmalion in the Classroom," he tells of case after case where teachers were told that a student, or sometimes a whole class, was extremely bright and was predicted to make a quantum leap in academic performance in the coming year.

Even though the students were chosen from the school population at large, as long as the teacher believed that the student or students were exceptional, and the teacher expected the student to do well, the students performed vastly better than other students in the same or similar classes, and vastly better than could have been predicted by previous grades or behavior.

In your own personal life, your expectations of your staff, your boss, your customers and even of your own future tend to come true. Your expectations exert a powerful influence on people and events, for good or for ill, so be careful!



In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGLwww.LuisLobo.Biz

How our opinions are formed.

Several years ago, during the height of the economic boom, I visited with scholars of the CATO Institute in DC. The conversation was about "why people, or some people behave as they do; or what does it take for people to react". Their analysis was driven by socio/economic status research which posed the following pyramid of influence:

5% of the population controls a vast amount of the wealth and intelligentsia, either on the left or the right. This 5% can influence the next 10-15% due to allocation of investments and political pressure.. This combined 20% can, at times, drive the beliefs and behavior of the next 20-25%. So now you have a cascade of influence that can move nearly 50% of the population, but most effectively at the highest 20-25%. What happens,I asked, about the lower 50%? They are nearly immovable, and only with events such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, Katrina, or 9-11 will they respond, for some period of time; then again goes into a placid state. I was devastated by this response, that nearly 50% of the population is detached, mostly.

Today the Washington Post published data by the Pew Research Center: What opinions, habits, surmises, hopes and fears do 20% of us share (recall the pyramid above)

1 in 5 Americans believe:

1. President Obama is a Muslim;
2. socialism is superior to capitalism (2009 Rasmussen survey);
3. reports " excessive sleepiness";
4. believes the harsh techniques used to interrogate terrorism suspects, were torture but still legitimate;
5. fears job loss in the next 12 months;
6. believes in the right of a state to secede;
7. thinks marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol;
8. believes that intelligent beings from other planets have made contact with
humans on earth;
9. skips medical care when sick or injured;
10. believes that the government "enjoys the consent of the governed"
11. admits to peeing in the pool.

So the question now becomes: "whom is influencing whom?"



In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGLwww.LuisLobo.Biz

The Declaration Of Independence, Read Aloud

July 2, 2010 Twenty-two years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become an Independence Day tradition: hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators reading the Declaration of Independence.

It was 234 years ago this Sunday that church bells rang out over Philadelphia, as the Continental Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128242656





In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

ABA STONIER NATIONAL GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BANKING at The Wharton School of Business - University of Pennsylvania

ABA now has the best of two educational traditions - the National Graduate School of Banking (NSB) and the Stonier Graduate School of Banking - integrated into one school and in one location at the University of Pennsylvania.

The ABA Stonier National Graduate School of Banking, the preeminent executive management school for the financial services industry, is designed to develop leaders who are able to compete in the 21st century. The primary objectives of the school are to provide you with the knowledge and skills to recognize and solve executive management problems and to implement solutions. With an industry undergoing such rapid change, highly developed leadership skills are required to meet the challenges and rapid changes occurring in the industry.

This school is about choice and building the program that will be right for you. Whether you design your own curriculum through a rich mix of Stonier core courses with a wide range of cutting edge electives, or select the pre-determined NSB program, the choice is yours.

This intense three-year program brings together the best and the brightest minds in the banking industry to be challenged by expert faculty and fellow students. Through a variety of team-building experiences students are able to brainstorm and share ideas. They develop strategies to be proactive in today's competitive financial environment, improve their effectiveness and internal working relationships, and hone their skills in all areas of banking.

Who Should Attend

•Senior to Executive Level Management in all functional areas of financial services
•Bank Directors
•Regulatory Staff
•Bank Examiners
•Financial Analysts



Executive Development Solutions
The ABA Stonier National Graduate School of Banking is part of a comprehensive portfolio of ABA Executive Development Solutions designed to improve leadership performance.

What Our Graduates Are Saying...
"Stonier prepared me to manage my institution no matter the economic environment. Topics and coursework covered at Stonier broadened my view of my institution, my customers, and my competitors; and armed me with the knowledge and tools to enhance our bottom line."
-- Kimberly S. Kirk, Senior Vice President/CFO, Vista Bank, Class of 2009

"It is obvious that the higher the quality of individuals in an organization, the better the organization performs. Stonier's NSB curriculum develops well-rounded individuals. The investment in high potental employees more than pays for itself."
-- Mark A Ricca, EVP, Chief Risk Officer and General Counsel, Carver Federal Savings Bank, Class of 2005

"As an EVP for a community bank, I was looking for a learning experience with a cross section of students representing other segments of our industry. I was pleased to find at Stonier not only community bankers, but also regulators, vendors, and students representing regional, national and international banks...."
-- Steven R. Lundgren, Executive Vice President, Denali State Bank, Class of 2009



Questions? Please contact Ann S. Friedman or Gloria Pritchard-Becker for more information.

Home | Search | Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy | Reprint Request Questions? E-mail the ABA Webmaster or Customer Service, or call 1-800-BANKERS (800-226-5377).
© 2010 American Bankers Association, 1120 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036. All rights reserved.

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

Arizona’s Immigration Law Does NOT go far enough….

Arizona’s Immigration Law Does NOT go far enough….

It has become evident that the politicization of immigration reform serves as a lightning rod for populism. It is NOT a reality to be resolved, as evidenced by the failure of Bush to gain his own party’s support for comprehensive reform; the waiver and lack of integrity of the Senator from Arizona John McCain and many on both sides of the aisle on the issue; and the lack of leadership on the Democratic side towards a fundamental and comprehensive program towards the use of foreign labor for our own needs. It is our own need to employ foreign labor and arcane rules that causes illegal immigration. It is also every human’s need to serve their selfish self-interest and seek a better result from their own efforts. We need the labor and immigrants are motivated to improve their lives. This is the story of the peoples of the United States.

This commentary is not about how the labor resource should be utilized. It is about how precious the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights are to us as citizens and to individuals across the globe. In the lexicon of today, the immigration problem is about “mexicans” (note the minor “m”). It appears most Americans are unaware of the Irishmexicans, the Chinesemexicans, Russianmexicans and other illegals in our midst. However, Arizona and other communities have opted to use their optical abilities to cull through the mexican-looking folks. This seems somewhat difficult to accomplish as some mexicans look Anglo, Arabic, and even indigenous. Arizona’s next step will be to make them all wear mexican flags on their clothing so that we do not confuse them, similar to a tyrannical and evil government in the 1930’s. The mexican flag can be the Star of David patch of today!

“ARTICLE THE SIXTH

[Amendment IV]

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.



Our laws apply to our citizens and to non-citizens. Thus, the newest missives from Arizona that no person with a foreign accent can teach English and that it will be unlawful to teach the history of its diverse populations in the public schools, will decide that competency is not the basic requirement to teach and that someone’s version of history, as opposed to the truth, will be better for all concerned. I am reminded of Arizona’s son Barry Goldwater, who said: “each man is responsible for his own actions, he is the best judge of his own well being, each has his individual conscience to serve.., and each man is a brother to every other man.”

I do not think Mr. Goldwater would recognize his home today.


Luis G. Lobo
"In the Final Analysis, Your Attitude Determines your Effectiveness in Everything, Every Time!"



In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

This is STILL the American Century.....

"We Americans are unhappy. We are not happy about America. We are not happy about ourselves in relation to America. We are nervous — or gloomy — or apathetic.... As we look towards the future — our own future and the future of other nations — we are filled with foreboding.... [We] have miserably failed to solve the problems of our epoch.... Nowhere in the world have man’s failures been so little excusable as in the United States of America. Nowhere has the contrast been so great between the reasonable hopes of our age and the actual facts of failure and frustration. And so now all our failures and mistakes hover like birds of ill omen....

Consider the 20th Century. It is ours not only in the sense that we happen to live in it, but ours also because it is America’s.... No other century has been so big with promise for human progress and happiness.... There is the belief — shared let us remember by most men living — that the 20th Century must be to a significant degree an American Century....

We have some things in this country which are infinitely precious and especially American — a love of freedom, a feeling for the equality of opportunity, a tradition of self-reliance and independence.... We are [also] the inheritors of all the great principles of Western civilization — above all Justice, the love of Truth, the ideal of Charity.... [This century] is now our time to be the powerhouse from which these ideals spread throughout the world and do their mysterious work of lifting the life of mankind from the level of the beasts to what the Psalmist called a little lower than the angels.

[I envision] America as the dynamic center of ever-widening spheres of enterprise, America as the training center of the skillful servants of mankind, America as the Good Samaritan, really believing again that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and America as the powerhouse of the ideals of freedom and justice — out of these elements surely can be fashioned a vision of the 20th century to which we can and will devote ourselves....

It is in this spirit that all of us are called, each to his own measure of capacity, and each in the widest horizon of his vision, to create the first great American Century."

Source: Life Magazine Editor, Henry Luce, "The American Century" (February 1941)


In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

I am what I am.....

The Scorpion and the Frog is a fable of unknown author, though often mis-attributed to Aesop.[1] The story is about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well. The frog then agrees; nevertheless, in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them. When asked why, the scorpion explains, "I'm a scorpion; it's my nature."

Common variations include a turtle, fox, or farmer in place of the frog, or a snake in place of the scorpion.

It is often quoted to illustrate the purportedly insuppressible nature of one's self at its base level.

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

Different but the Same, Tx. Kevin!

Luis

Maybe it is ironic that I was on a flight to Costa Rica that, when opening my pile of analyst reports, CFO magazines and other assorted items in my “reading” file that I decided I would read your book. I first want to thank you for having the courage to share your life experiences, for me I found an amazing sameness to our lives. In college I never would have thought of us as similar, I liked to party and school was secondary. We were in different fraternities, and if we hadn’t gone to a school where everyone knows everyone else, it is unlikely our paths would have crossed. However, the underlying commonality of our upbringing, I was raised by a handicapped father, who never let his handicap be a handicap, and a mother who was told by her father at the age of 18 that a woman should get married and raise a family, and there was no place for her on a college campus. She died with two Masters degrees and thousands of productive adults that had been influenced by her as a teacher. The importance of family and faith rooted in our parents and grandparents. Finally, a desire to succeed by charting our own destiny.

It is refreshing to hear the perspective that we need to be accountable to ourselves first and that only we can navigate the roadblocks to our success. I recently had a conversation with a young lady who told me that if I were to do a bad deal I could get fired. She clearly had been taught by a former manager that to do nothing meant we would do nothing wrong. Your book clearly outlines the joys of being able to overcome the fear of failure in order to enjoy success. Your talk of dark days allows us to have perspective, and makes the book more genuine, not some sugarcoated sales manual. I appreciate your genuine approach to the balance of work, family and faith. So many times I feel I have given too much attention to one and caused others to suffer.

I am currently leading a team in a very complicated and time consuming integration. I have approached the process head on and told our team we are going to have a year of pain, before we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We lost three senior executives in a month, which whether I liked it or not, elevated me to a position of responsibility among my peers I had never been in before. Not only did I have to manage my team, now I had to be the voice of experience to a new group of peers. It is especially difficult because we are working with the former team still employed, but on retention. Fortunately, nine months out we are almost done. I finally am able to sleep at night. Still, we are going through the same process you did, where it seems one group at a time step up and get the job done. I am very proud of my team, my peers and my bosses.

In this day of entitlement your book is a refreshing look at the fact that we control our lives and our destiny. While this may seem scary to some, how much more scary is it to put control of your destiny in a Board of Directors bound by a fiduciary duty not to you, but to its shareholders. Or an elected official, or government bureaucrat, to whom we are just a statistic, or a possible vote. Sure there are dark days and barriers, these can be excuses, or we can see the barriers as experiences that provide the skills we need to succeed. YOU decide your course. I love those capital YOU’s!!!!!

I am proud to have you as my fellow classmate and Belmont Abbey Crusader. It is an honor to know you and your success inspires us. If you are in the Fort Worth area please look me up and we can go grab some dinner, I will do the same if I am in DC. I wish you and your family continued success.

HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!






Kevin Mahoney
Vice President, Finance
erxnetwork.com




In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

President Kennedy on the subject of History

Upon request from American Heritage Magazine, 1962

There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country. Without such knowledge, he stands uncertain and defenseless before the world, knowing neither where he has come from nor where lie is going. With such knowledge, he is no longer alone but draws a strength far greater than his own from the cumulative experience of the past and a cumulative vision of the future.

Knowledge of our history is, first of all, a pleasure for its own sake. The American past is a record of stirring achievement in the face of stubborn difficulty. It is a record filled with figures larger than life, with high drama and hard decision, with valor and with tragedy, with incidents both poignant and picturesque, and with the excitement and hope involved in the conquest of a wilderness and the settlement of a continent. For the true historian—and for the true student of history—history is an end in itself. It fulfills a deep human need for understanding, and the satisfaction it provides requires no further justification.

Yet, though no further justification is required for the study of history, it would not be correct to say that history serves no further use than the satisfaction of the historian. History, after all, is the memory of a nation. Just as memory enables the individual to learn, to choose goals and stick to them, to avoid making the same mistake twice—in short, to grow—so history is the means by which a nation establishes its sense of identity and purpose. The future arises out of the past, and a country’s history is a statement of the values and hopes which, having forged what has gone before, will now forecast what is to come.

As means of knowledge, history becomes a means of judgment. It offers an understanding of both the variety and unity of a nation whose motto is E Pluribus Unum—out of many, one. It reminds us of the diverse abundance of our people, coming from all races and all parts of the world, of our fields and mountain ranges, deserts and great rivers, our green farmlands and the thousand voices of our cities. No revolution in communication or transportation can destroy the fact that this continent is, as Walt Whitman said, “a nation of nations.” Yet it also reminds us that, in spite of the diversity of ethnic origin, of geographic locale, of occupation, of social status, of religious creed, of political commitment, Americans are united by an ancient and encompassing faith in progress, justice, and freedom.

Our history thus tests our policy: Our past judges our present. Of all the disciplines, the study of the folly and achievements of man is best calculated to foster the critical sense of what is permanent and meaningful amid the mass of superficial and transient questions which make up the day-to-day clamor. The history of our nation tells us that every action taken against the freedoms of conscience and expression, against equality before the law and equality of opportunity, against the ordinary men and women of the country is an action taken against the American tradition. And it tells us that every action taken for a larger freedom and a more equal and spacious society is one more step toward realization of what Herbert Croly once called “the promise of American life.”

A knowledge of history is more than a means of judgment: It is also a means of sympathy—a means of relating our own experience with the experience of other peoples and lands struggling for national fulfillment. We may sometimes forget, for example, that the United States began as an underdeveloped nation which seized its independence by carrying out a successful revolution against a colonial empire. We may forget that, in the first years of the new republic, George Washington laid down the principle of no “permanent alliances” and enjoined the United States to a course of neutralism in the face of the great-power conflicts then dividing the civilized world. We may forget that, in the first stages of our economic development, our national growth was stimulated to a considerable degree by “foreign aid”—that is, investment from abroad—and by public investment and direction on the part of our state and local as well as our national government. We may forget that our own process of economic change was often accompanied by the issue of wildcat paper money, by the repudiation of bonds, by disorder, fraud, and violence. If we recall the facts of our own past, we may better understand the problems and predicaments of contemporary “new nations” laboring for national development in circumstances far less favorable than our own— and we will, in consequence, become less liable to the self-righteousness which is both unworthy of our own traditions and a bane of international relations.

A knowledge of history is, in addition, a means of strength. “In times of change and danger,” John Dos Passos wrote just before World War II, “when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a life line across the scary present.” Dos Passos called his book The Ground We Stand On—and the title concisely defines the role of the past in preparing us for the crisis of the present and the challenge of the future. When Americans fight for individual liberty, they have Thomas Jefferson and James Madison beside them; when they strive for social justice, they strive alongside Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt; when they work for peace and a world community, they work with Woodrow Wilson; when they fight and die in wars to make men free, they fight and die with Abraham Lincoln. Historic continuity with the past, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “is not a duty; it is only a necessity.”

A knowledge of history is, above all, a means of responsibility—of responsibility to the past and of responsibility to the future … of responsibility to those who came before us and struggled and sacrificed to pass on to us our precious inheritance of freedom … and of responsibility to those who will come after us and to whom we must pass on that inheritance with what new strength and substance it is within our power to add. “Fellow citizens,” Abraham Lincoln said, “we cannot escape history. … The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” American history is not something dead and over. It is always alive, always growing, always unfinished— and every American today has Iris own contribution to make to the great fabric of tradition and hope which binds all Americans, dead and living and yet to be born, in a common faith and a common destiny.








In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

Para mis amigos and those that read Spanish

Mensaje de la EditoraC+ (Sé Positivo)
escrito por Rosalinda Delgado


El nuevo año está aquí y Buena Gente cumple 7 años de existencia, comenzamos el 8vo. año con un nuevo mensaje que aunque es corto, significa mucho. C+ (Sé Positivo), en inglés: B+ (Be positive).

¡Si! Este nuevo año no podemos esperar a que la economía mejore. Tenemos que tomar cartas en el asunto para prosperar, mejorar nuestra salud, saldar las deudas, incrementar las ventas en el negocio, mejorar la comunicación con nuestros hijos, encontrar un nuevo empleo. Para lograr tener lo que queremos, tenemos que hacer algo que no hemos hecho.

En primer lugar, si quieres que contemos contigo, tienes que dejarte contar en el Censo 2010. Es imprescindible que se sepa cuantos hispanos vivimos en los EEUU. Si no tienes documentación, el Censo será una fuerte evidencia de su presencia en EEUU en el 2010. La oficina del censo, por mandato de ley, no puede divulgar información sobre ti a ninguna otra agencia, a menos que tú expresamente lo solicites. Esto te da gran ventaja al solicitar la ciudadanía y te pidan evidencia de haber estado en EEUU. En tal caso, podrás decir que fuiste contado en el Censo 2010 y solicitar que la oficina del Censo lo verifique. El censo también nos dará una fuerza mayor como hispanos/latinos en Maryland. Se estima que la presencia hispana en el estado puede llegar a un 15 ó 20% de la población. El gobierno federal tendrá, por consecuencia, que asignar más fondos a los servicios que presta a nuestra comunidad.

En segundo lugar, tenemos que pensar si queremos que nuestra población sea la más pobre o la más rica. Somos definitivamente los más trabajadores y los más consumistas. Ahora bien, ¿seremos los más educados? Nuestros jóvenes están abandonando la escuela para irse a trabajar, y nuestras jovencitas se están embarazando en plena adolescencia. ¡Es una epidemia alarmante! ¿Que indica esto? Que estamos en a riesgo de ser parte de la población más pobre de América. ¡Aun estamos a tiempo de cambiar el futuro de nuestros hijos con las decisiones del presente!

En tercer lugar, ¡Abre la boca! Habla con tu vecino y conócelo (así entenderá mejor nuestra cultura), entérate de lo que está pasando, intégrate a tu comunidad, participa, comienza un equipo deportivo, toma una clase, sal de tu casa y haz ejercicios, habla con otros comerciantes y averigua lo que están haciendo, arriésgate. No le temas al rechazo, sé positivo y piensa que todo saldrá bien, que sobrevivirás para contar tu historia. Ahora, ¡levántate y haz lo que nunca haz hecho, para que logres lo que nunca has tenido!

C+
Rosalinda Delgado
editor@buenagente.us





In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

Let them FAIL!

Added regulation causes greater pervesion!

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Feb 11 (Reuters) - U.S. banks resentful about Washington interference on pay and other issues need to make clear they won't beg for a bailout when crisis hits, said former BB&T Corp Chief Executive and Chairman John Allison.

While they're at it, banks should consider overhauling their compensation systems anyway because they do not work well in the long term, Allison, 61, said in a wide-ranging interview about the U.S. banking system on Wednesday.

Allowing troubled banks to fail would regulate the market better then the government could, said Allison, who, since quitting as BB&T CEO in 2008 and chairman in 2010, has become a popular figure among critics of the U.S. government's financial industry bailout and the subsequent regulatory debate.

BB&T, the nation's tenth-largest bank, came through the credit crisis in a relatively healthy position vis-a-vis many of its southern regional rivals. Allison led the bank for nearly two decades, from 1989 to 2008, and was the architect of its growth from a small, North Carolina bank.

It took $3.1 billion from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), but was one of the first banks to repay the money and has emerged as a consolidator in the troubled sector, buying the assets of failed Colonial Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

"I have no empathy for" banks that failed in the crisis, said Allison, now a business school professor at Wake Forest University .

Allison's comments come as regulators and the U.S. Congress debate financial industry rules. In recent months, critics have lambasted banks that paid record annual bonuses despite taking billions of dollars in federal bailouts during the crisis, and as broader U.S. unemployment remains near 10 percent.

Allison, who opposes the Obama administration's proposed regulatory reforms, says he has a simple solution.

"If [these banks] had been allowed to fail, these bankers wouldn't be getting paid right now," he said.

Allison's industry view is informed by his personal libertarian philosophy and reflected in his small, spartan office on the third floor of Wake Forest 's sprawling business and law school building.

His most prominent office decoration is a bookcase stacked with the works of Objectivist philosopher and author Ayn Rand, whose novels celebrate individualism and unfettered laissez-faire capitalism.

While Allison's outspoken anti-bailout views have fueled speculation about a career in politics, he poured cold water on that idea, and insisted he's more interested in trying to influence young minds through his current academic post.

Banks brought the government's scrutiny by making poor decisions leading up to the crisis, and giving executives badly structured pay packages, he said. Directors should take the blame for banker pay.

"Boards made significant operational errors," he said.

In the years leading up to the crisis, banks tied employee pay to short-term gains, rather than long-term health and stability of an institution, he said.

Compensation committees, he said, were "simply not comprehensive in their evaluation" of pay guidelines.

The result was bankers acting in their own interests, but not the long-term interest of shareholders and the companies, he said.

FAILING UP

The ever-present prospect of government rescue, he said, caused the biggest banks to act irresponsibly, taking larger risks than they might without implicit help from Uncle Sam.

If any bank becomes "too big to fail," Allison said the government must create a mechanism to break them up.

"I think it creates an oligopoly in the business long-term," by allowing such banks to survive, he said. "They've got a long-term competitive advantage and the market will figure that out."

Allison's solution is simple: Cut out what he views as badly focused regulations.

Instead, he wants to see banks retain more capital to reduce their leverage, and cut 90 percent of the current banking regulations.

"You've have a better capitalized industry which is by definition less risky, and banks can run on their own merits," he said.

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

LET FREEDOM RING!!!!!!!!!

Felicia Lobo and Honorable Eleanor Homes Norton, Member from DC, Congress of the Unites States of America. UPO MLK Memorial 01-18-10

LET FREEDOM RING……
This morning, at the United Planning Organization’s 26th Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Breakfast, Felicia and I were seated with a group of community activists and volunteers. There were a lot of comments made, at the table and from the lectern, about the hard gained rights of minorities from the majority in attaining the basic rights of life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. There were also ample comments about the current economic situation and the desperate predicament of nearly a 20% unemployment or underemployment rate nationwide. I clearly understand that in 2010 all sorts of discrimination occur due to race, gender, creed, and color, economic and political status but to name a few. There was a time, not so many years ago, when many forms of discrimination kept certain individuals from participating in the economic market, beyond possibly menial labor. However, in the free market, individuals today are judged by their productivity and creativity in accomplishing economic progress. Yet the freedom to do so is quickly eroding as the economic motivation of entrepreneurs and other creators of wealth are shackled by destructive regulation, taxation and government intervention.

Equal opportunity to live one’s life as one sees fit, without the oppression of the politically powerful, acting on the perceived behalf of “the people”, is the paradise on earth we call America. While American apartheid was morally wrong and only the central government could pass the laws enforcing equal justice; the rapid destruction of our economic “miracle” is equally heinous. In his speech, “The American Dream”, MLK noted “Now, ever since the founding fathers of our nation dreamed this dream in all its magnificence – to use a big word that psychiatrists use – America has been something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against herself. On the other hand we have proudly professed the great principles of democracy, but on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very opposite of those principles. But now more than ever before, America is challenged to realize its dream, for the shape of the world today does not permit our nation the luxury of an anemic democracy”. Prophetic words for our time, from his time some 45 years ago.

Government should provide for an environment where we can be safeguarded against violence within and outside our borders. We should all be treated equal before the law. We should all be given the opportunity to pursue our dream, without doing harm to others. The moral hazard incurred over the last two years; where mismanaged businesses were not allowed to fail, even as others were driven to fail; where under unspoken threat healthy financial institutions were made to take TARP, and allocate ownership rights to the Treasury; where government intervention in the “too big to fail” concept destroyed the competitive advantage of well run businesses, these are the characteristics not of a democratic society, and barely those of a communistic one: This is the face of fascism.

So today, many Americans want the government to make it all right. This is like asking the surgeon that cut off the wrong arm to treat the other. The “welfare state” has now mostly bankrupted Japan and many European nations. We have true and empirical evidence that socialism, which is a close cousin to the tyranny of fascism, is a flawed concept, because the few cannot produce enough to take care of the masses. There will come a time, unless this tide of oppression is changed, and I mean fast, where economic decay will visit America and our best days will not be ahead. Economic capital will simply move to a freer location in its pursuit of creativity, innovation and productivity. So today, of all days, LET FREEDOM RING and allow men and women of good will to create without oppression. Then this paradise named America will continue to be the greatest leader of freedom ever conceived by the mind of man.

Luis G. Lobo
Frederick, MD




In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

How to Live

Share by my high school coach - Clyde Smith, thank you!

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In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL