Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category
April 6th, 2010 | 
Author: Banks Make Over $38 Billion in Overdraft Fees
Modern Day Government Subsisdized Loansharks
Where is the help for the hard working men and women that helped to build and maintain this great country of ours?
US banks stand to collect a record $38.5bn in fees for customer overdrafts this year, with the bulk of the revenue coming from the most financially stretched consumers amid the deepest recession since the 1930s, according to research. The fees are nearly double those reported in 2000.
The finding is likely to increase public hostility towards the financial sector, which has been under political pressure to ease the burden on consumers by increasing credit availability and lending more fairly after being bailed out by taxpayers.
The median bank overdraft fee has this year rose from $25 to $26, according to Moebs, the first time it has gone up in a recession for more than 40 years.
“Banks are returning to a fee-driven model and overdraft fees are the mother lode,” said Mike Moebs, the company’s founder.
Overdraft fees accounted for more than three-quarters of service fees charged on customer deposits, he said.
The most cash-strapped customers are the hardest hit by such fees, with 90 per cent of overdraft revenues coming from 10 per cent of the 130m checking accounts in the US. Regular use of overdrafts is most common among consumers with low credit scores, Moebs discovered.
How much is Joe American, used to being middle class, expected to suffer?
We are all getting tired of being raped by the so called suffering financial institutions in this country and the Fed.
Yet they somehow find the funds to pay out billions in exorbitant bonuses, while denying credit to the businesses that can help get America and the GDP moving more positive.
Maybe it’s time for the average consumer to pay cash or put it away, like the old days on layaway.
I’m thinking that we all have responsibility in this crisis, but many of us are also getting tired of being plugged in the ass dry. Cash is king for now and if you can’t afford to pay cash maybe it’s more of a want than a need. To be truthful I’m looking forward to a simper, kinder, and more loving America.
Ironically it seems like those who are most affected by the economy, are also the same families and individuals who are best coping with our current economic crisis.
If this is capitalism, then I suppose I’m guilty of being a socialist.
I believe in the fair and equitable distribution of wealth. The hypocrisy in this nation never ceases to amaze me. We claim to be a God Fearing and loving Nation, yet we turn a blind eye to those who can’t take care of themselves. Unless they are in the womb, then after they are born they are on their own.
The real travesty of justice, is that this country has more than enough resources to take care of everyone. The elite 1% could still have their 24K gold plated fixtures on their G550′s and mega yachts. They just need to pay more taxes.
Is anyone else tired of seeing the rich housewives of New York, New Jersey, and California paying more for a purse then it would cost a family of four to pay for health care in the U.S?
Not too mention the state of CA is going broke. They are issuing IOU’s to pay bills. Does anyone besides me see a problem with that. Why should we continue to subsidize the rich when they are more than capable of paying their fair share of taxes?
We are spending hundreds of billions if not trillions fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mostly for the protection of an antiquated fuel source called oil and the cheap economy it supports.
Don’t kid yourself, we are not spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan to save humanity and the democratic/capitalistic way of life, or in a futile attempt to eradicate opium. It’s all about fossil fuels and the upcoming energy wars.
The Afghans have been living in turmoil for 30 years or more. Most of them are illiterate which makes the dissemination of information difficult if not very improbable.
Afghanistan brought down the U.S.S.R. with our help in the 80′s. They may very well do the same to to the United States of America, maybe this time with Russia and China’s help. Unless cooler and more intelligent heads prevail, I fear we are heading down that very road.
The U.S.S.R didn’t get it, until it was too late. Hopefully we can and history doesn’t repeat itself again. It’s about time that we got over ourselves and realized just because we have the most nukes doesn’t give us the right to be the worlds bully and police force. Maybe someday we can really give peace a try.
The Afghanistan war will cost us much more than the Vietnam War, both in human and monetary cost. Do we even have proof that they are enemies? Or are they for the most part poor illiterate uneducated farmers trying to provide for their families.
These are people that have known nothing but war for over 30 years, are we really that arrogant to think we can win this war? Let’s face the truth, most American have no idea of the true horrors of war. It’s become something we put on a balance sheet.
If we learn nothing from the past, I Pray that we can learn quite quickly that we will never win in Afghanistan. Look what it did to the Russians and the empires before them. Afghanistan brought down the Soviet Union and it will do the same to us if we don’t learn from past mistakes. The U.S simply cannot afford to be the world’s policeman at this time.
Bottom line most middle class Americans are living on borrowed time. Once the credit is exhausted shit will really begin to hit the fan.
How much more are the working men and women of this great country supposed to endure? All the while the fat cats of Wall St. grow richer at the taxpayers expense.
Why do we think that as Americans we have the right to tell the rest of the world how to live and run their governments, when we can barely run our own country?
Maybe it’s time for us to get our own country into better fiscal shape, before we take on the world.
The Romans thought they had a good plan too, until they realized it was too late.
Let’s hope that the United States of America doesn’t have to make the same mistakes by spreading our military strength too thin, until we realize it is economically and politically unsustainable.
Blast in Iraqi Capital Kills 72
Blast in Iraqi Capital Kills 72
Iraqi police say 72 people have been killed in a bomb blast in Baghdad, less than a week before U.S. troops are to withdraw from Iraq’s urban areas.
More than 160 people were injured in Wednesday’s blast, which tore through a market in the mostly Shi’ite district of Sadr City. Officials say the attacker hid the bomb under a cart of vegetables loaded on a motorcycle.
U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban Fighters
U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban Fighters in Afghanistan Mountain Pass
Members of the platoon on patrol in Afghanistan’s Korangal Valley.
KORANGAL OUTPOST, Afghanistan — Only the lead insurgents were disciplined as they walked along the ridge. They moved carefully, with weapons ready and at least five yards between each man, the soldiers who surprised them said.
Behind them, a knot of Taliban fighters walked in a denser group, some with rifles slung on their shoulders — “pretty much exactly the way we tell soldiers not to do it,” said Specialist Robert Soto, the radio operator for the American patrol.
If these insurgents came close enough, the soldiers knew, the patrol could kill them in a batch.
Fight by fight, the infantryman’s war in Afghanistan is often waged on the Taliban’s terms. Insurgents ambush convoys and patrols from high ridges or long ranges and slip away as the Americans, weighed down by equipment, return fire and call for air and artillery support. Last week a patrol from the First Infantry Division reversed the routine.
An American platoon surprised an armed Taliban column on a forested ridgeline at night, and killed at least 13 insurgents, and perhaps many more, with rifles, machine guns, Claymore mines, hand grenades and a knife.
The one-sided fight, fought on the slopes of the same mountain where a Navy Seal patrol was surrounded in 2005 and a helicopter with reinforcements was shot down, does not change the war. It was one of hundreds of firefights that have occurred in the Korangal Valley, an isolated region where local insurgents and the Americans have been locked in a bitter stalemate for more than three years.
But as accounts of the fight have spread, the ambush, on Good Friday, has become an emotional rallying point for soldiers in Kunar Province, who have seen it as a both a validation of their equipment and training and a welcome bit of score-settling in an area that in recent years has claimed more American lives than any other.
The patrol, 30 soldiers from the First Battalion, 26th Infantry, had left this outpost before noon on April 10, and spent much of the day climbing a ridge on the opposite side of the Korangal River, according to interviews with more than half the participants.
The patrol, Second Platoon of Company B, was in a place where no Americans had spent a night for years, and it seemed that the Afghans did not expect danger.The soldiers waited. The rules of the ambush were long ago drilled into them: no one can move, and no one can fire until the patrol leader gives the order. Then everyone must fire at once.
The lead fighter had almost reached the platoon when Pvt. First Class Troy Pacini-Harvey, 19, his laser trained on the lead man’s forehead, moved his rifle’s selector lever from safe to semi-automatic. It made a barely audible click.
The Taliban fighter froze. He was six feet away.Lieutenant Smith was new to the platoon. This was his fourth patrol. He was in a situation that every infantry lieutenant trains for, but almost no infantry lieutenant ever sees. “Fire,” he said, softly into the radio. “Fire. Fire. Fire.”
The platoon’s frontage exploded with noise and flashes of light as soldiers fired. Bullets struck all of the lead Taliban fighters, the soldiers said. The first Afghans fell where they were hit, not managing to fire a single shot.
Five Taliban fighters bolted to the soldiers’ left, unwittingly running squarely into the path of machine-gun bullets and the Claymore mines. For a moment, the soldiers heard rustling in the brush. They detonated their Claymores and threw hand grenades. The rustling stopped.
Two other Taliban fighters had dashed to the right, toward an almost sheer drop. One ran so wildly in the blackness that his momentum carried him off the cliff, several soldiers said.
Second Platoon, Company B has endured one of the most arduous assignments in Afghanistan. Eight of the platoon’s soldiers have been wounded in nine months of fighting in the valley, part of a bitter contest for control of a small and sparsely populated area.Three others have been killed.
In a matter of minutes, the ambush changed the experience of the surviving soldiers’ tours. The degree of turnabout surprised even some the soldiers who participated.
“It’s the first time most of us have even seen the guys who were shooting at us,” said Sgt. Thomas Horvath, 21.
The Truth Shall Set You Free
Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East, Politics | 
Tags: american soldiers, dover air force base, war dead | 
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