http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf
* Yes, the more electricity you use the more you get charged.
Prices as of September, 22 2009...
Total Energy Rates ($ per kWh, or kilowatt hour)
Tier 1 = 12 cents per kWh
(Baseline Usage)
Tier 2 = 13 cents per kWh
(101% - 130% of Baseline)
Tier 3 = 26 cents per kWh
(131% - 200% of Baseline)
Tier 4 = 38 cents per kWh
(201% - 300% of Baseline)
Tier 5 = 44 cents per kWh
(Over 300% of Baseline)
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Statue of Liberty
http://www.libertystatepark.com/emma.htm
Statue of Liberty National Monument
"The New Colossus"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
A poem by Emma Lazarus is graven on a tablet
within the pedestal on which the statue stands.
Statue of Liberty National Monument
"The New Colossus"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
A poem by Emma Lazarus is graven on a tablet
within the pedestal on which the statue stands.
This is not fiction...
America. My God, the word means so much. We were a beacon of hope…a shining example to the downtrodden masses around the globe who dreamed and yearned for this land where hard work got you a house in a safe neighborhood and two working cars (and freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to shop at the mall). Then Bush came along and disgraced our country by recreating the Vietnam War in Iraq.
At the time of writing, the Iraq War costs us approximately $700 billion…which also happens to be the same price-tag Paulson put on the first bailout for his banker buddies.
‘Cause none of those greenbacks made it to the people on Main Street when the subprime jack-in-the-box sprung up on Wall Street. Those MFs had pension plans, 401ks and home values all rolled into one ball of wax, and then they bet it all on “subprime” lendees’ abilities to pay back the loans on houses they couldn’t afford.
There was also the surprise of the mortgage with the escalating interest rate that could double and even triple in value. Meaning, a 4% interest rate could become 8%, and then 12%...and that’s when the “subprime” lendees threw the keys in their mailboxes, and abandoned the homes they couldn’t afford. Banks and lending offices were taking anybody who walked through the door, literally. No proof of job, no nothing. Just sign here and off you go to your patio in the back of your new 4-bedroom house, which may in the future lose 30% of its value when the Real Estate Boom goes…Bust!
The Dow lost over half its value, from a high of roughly 14,000 in October 2007 to roughly 6,600 in March 2009. Venerable financial firms crumbled like shale being drilled for oil.
“Down goes Lehman Brothers!” (You gotta do it in Howard Cossel’s voice for the full effect. It’s more fun that way.)
“Down goes Bear Stearns…oh, oh no!...Mer-awl L’nch is-on-the…ropes. But seemingly like a Deus-ex-Machina from the heavens, Bank of Am…eric-ah…steps in to claim the wayward bank.”
I mean, we saw the biggest bank failure in United States history (WaMu) and the biggest corporate collapse (AIG). General Motors also waved the white flag when they saw all the kingdom’s drivers not being able to afford the $3-4 a gallon gas the oil companies were ransoming. We people sure as hell weren’t going to buy an SUV that got 13 miles to the gallon. So Detroit (Ford and Chrysler, too) took a handout, from us taxpayers who couldn’t afford to drive their inefficient cars anymore.
The credit markets seized up, nobody was lending. Nobody. Nobody but the Federal Reserve…lending our tax dollars to the banks who put us in this mess. It ain’t right what happened, but I sure don’t want to see the whole thing come tumbling down. Prop up the banks until they can walk on their own, but once they can they should be lending the money back to the people who bailed the banks out in the first place.
Bush did more damage than hurricane Katrina. Worse yet, he didn’t clean up his own mess. He left it all for Barack Obama to sort out.
And that’s where we begin our story…
At the time of writing, the Iraq War costs us approximately $700 billion…which also happens to be the same price-tag Paulson put on the first bailout for his banker buddies.
‘Cause none of those greenbacks made it to the people on Main Street when the subprime jack-in-the-box sprung up on Wall Street. Those MFs had pension plans, 401ks and home values all rolled into one ball of wax, and then they bet it all on “subprime” lendees’ abilities to pay back the loans on houses they couldn’t afford.
There was also the surprise of the mortgage with the escalating interest rate that could double and even triple in value. Meaning, a 4% interest rate could become 8%, and then 12%...and that’s when the “subprime” lendees threw the keys in their mailboxes, and abandoned the homes they couldn’t afford. Banks and lending offices were taking anybody who walked through the door, literally. No proof of job, no nothing. Just sign here and off you go to your patio in the back of your new 4-bedroom house, which may in the future lose 30% of its value when the Real Estate Boom goes…Bust!
The Dow lost over half its value, from a high of roughly 14,000 in October 2007 to roughly 6,600 in March 2009. Venerable financial firms crumbled like shale being drilled for oil.
“Down goes Lehman Brothers!” (You gotta do it in Howard Cossel’s voice for the full effect. It’s more fun that way.)
“Down goes Bear Stearns…oh, oh no!...Mer-awl L’nch is-on-the…ropes. But seemingly like a Deus-ex-Machina from the heavens, Bank of Am…eric-ah…steps in to claim the wayward bank.”
I mean, we saw the biggest bank failure in United States history (WaMu) and the biggest corporate collapse (AIG). General Motors also waved the white flag when they saw all the kingdom’s drivers not being able to afford the $3-4 a gallon gas the oil companies were ransoming. We people sure as hell weren’t going to buy an SUV that got 13 miles to the gallon. So Detroit (Ford and Chrysler, too) took a handout, from us taxpayers who couldn’t afford to drive their inefficient cars anymore.
The credit markets seized up, nobody was lending. Nobody. Nobody but the Federal Reserve…lending our tax dollars to the banks who put us in this mess. It ain’t right what happened, but I sure don’t want to see the whole thing come tumbling down. Prop up the banks until they can walk on their own, but once they can they should be lending the money back to the people who bailed the banks out in the first place.
Bush did more damage than hurricane Katrina. Worse yet, he didn’t clean up his own mess. He left it all for Barack Obama to sort out.
And that’s where we begin our story…
Monday, September 21, 2009
IMPORTANT: Financial Accounting Standards Board changes mark-to-market rules
Hey All,
Please take a peek when you get a break in your day. For those of you lacking a natural affinity for accounting rules (I’m right there with you), I’d suggest you get some chocolate or coffee, or a stimulant of your choice, before reading this.
Get jacked up on something and tear through this because it is very important to understand…they flipped the board and changed the rules of the game.
Bass
Here are viewpoints from the New York Times and the Wharton School of Business from the University of Pennsylvania…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/business/03fasb.html
EXCERPTS:
The change seems likely to allow banks to report higher profits by assuming that the securities are worth more than anyone is now willing to pay for them. But critics objected that the change could further damage the credibility of financial institutions by enabling them to avoid recognizing losses from bad loans they have made.
Critics also said that since the rules were changed under heavy political pressure, the move compromised the independence of the organization that did it, the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
During the financial crisis, the market prices of many securities, particularly those backed by subprime home mortgages, have plunged to fractions of their original prices. That has forced banks to report hundreds of billions of dollars in losses over the last year, because some of those securities must be reported at market value each three months, with the bank showing a profit or loss based on the change.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2195
EXCERPTS:
But not everyone agrees that mark-to-market rules have been as damaging as the banks claim.
“I’ve never bought the idea that market-value accounting caused this crisis,” says Wharton accounting professor Brian J. Bushee. Changing accounting rules to accommodate the banks would be like changing the scoring system for tennis, he suggests. “It wouldn’t make you a better tennis player. Changing how we keep score — what these assets are worth — won’t change the problem…. In a sense, that’s what [the banks] are asking investors to do — to say, ‘Let’s use these four-year-old values, not what things are currently worth’”….
Bankers bitterly complained that the current market prices were the result of distressed sales and that they should be allowed to ignore those prices and value the securities instead at their value in a normal market. At first FASB, pronounced FAS-bee, resisted making changes, but that changed within a few days of a Congressional hearing at which legislators from both parties demanded the board act.
If the FASB, which sets accounting rules in collaboration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, approves the rule change tomorrow [which they did], banks would be free to carry troubled assets on their books at higher prices, avoiding requirements to shore up balance sheets with new capital they cannot get now.
But potential buyers of toxic assets will make their own valuation assessments regardless of what the accounting rules allow the banks to claim, says Wharton finance professor Itay Goldstein. “After all, if assets are not marked down, investors would still fear that they are worth less” than they once were.
Mark-to-market defenders say that using market prices is the best way to derive honest values. Allowing banks too much latitude would paper over the problem, making banks look healthier than they are, they say. “It’s an issue because … the year before the crisis was the first in which firms were required to follow a new set of fair-value measurement tools,” according to Wharton accounting professor Catherine M. Schrand….
On the other hand, if the government’s toxic-asset purchase program does generate significant trading, the whole issue of how to value the assets remaining on banks’ books will become moot, since there will then be enough fresh data to justify mark-to-market accounting, says Wharton finance professor Franklin Allen.
Skimpy Trading
Many experts acknowledge that the skimpy trading in toxic assets creates difficulties. “If there is no trading then you can’t really mark to market,” argues Wharton finance professor Jeremy J. Siegel. “I think there’s been trading that is at too low a price…. I wouldn’t mind suspending mark-to-market for those assets right now.”
But Susan M. Wachter, professor of real estate at Wharton, thinks that for the financial and economic crises to begin to ease, the “murky” condition of banks must be clarified. That cannot be done with accounting changes that simply make the assets look more valuable, she says, arguing that the banks must instead be encouraged to get rid of those holdings. “In order for capital to come to banks, they must disgorge their non-performing assets. That mark-to-market component is necessary.”
Banks’ in-house systems cannot give accurate valuations because too many factors are unknown, such as whether the economy will deteriorate further and whether there will be additional government stimulus spending, according to Wachter.For the banks, a chief benefit of flexible accounting is that it will make them less likely to run afoul of capital-reserve requirements, since their balance sheets will look stronger.Siegel notes that if capital requirements are the issue, regulators could help the banks by easing those instead of changing accounting rules. Wharton finance professor Marshall E. Blume, agrees. “The regulators are in a difficult position, because these companies clearly are not as viable as they were. Having said that, you don’t change the accounting to make it look like they are viable.”
Wachter insists that capital requirements should be based on market-to-market rules, because investors who could pump capital into the banks will be reluctant to do so if they think accounting tricks make banks look healthier than they are. Easing the mark-to-market requirement, she says, “is a road to a long and sustained recession.”
Please take a peek when you get a break in your day. For those of you lacking a natural affinity for accounting rules (I’m right there with you), I’d suggest you get some chocolate or coffee, or a stimulant of your choice, before reading this.
Get jacked up on something and tear through this because it is very important to understand…they flipped the board and changed the rules of the game.
Bass
Here are viewpoints from the New York Times and the Wharton School of Business from the University of Pennsylvania…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/business/03fasb.html
EXCERPTS:
The change seems likely to allow banks to report higher profits by assuming that the securities are worth more than anyone is now willing to pay for them. But critics objected that the change could further damage the credibility of financial institutions by enabling them to avoid recognizing losses from bad loans they have made.
Critics also said that since the rules were changed under heavy political pressure, the move compromised the independence of the organization that did it, the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
During the financial crisis, the market prices of many securities, particularly those backed by subprime home mortgages, have plunged to fractions of their original prices. That has forced banks to report hundreds of billions of dollars in losses over the last year, because some of those securities must be reported at market value each three months, with the bank showing a profit or loss based on the change.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2195
EXCERPTS:
But not everyone agrees that mark-to-market rules have been as damaging as the banks claim.
“I’ve never bought the idea that market-value accounting caused this crisis,” says Wharton accounting professor Brian J. Bushee. Changing accounting rules to accommodate the banks would be like changing the scoring system for tennis, he suggests. “It wouldn’t make you a better tennis player. Changing how we keep score — what these assets are worth — won’t change the problem…. In a sense, that’s what [the banks] are asking investors to do — to say, ‘Let’s use these four-year-old values, not what things are currently worth’”….
Bankers bitterly complained that the current market prices were the result of distressed sales and that they should be allowed to ignore those prices and value the securities instead at their value in a normal market. At first FASB, pronounced FAS-bee, resisted making changes, but that changed within a few days of a Congressional hearing at which legislators from both parties demanded the board act.
If the FASB, which sets accounting rules in collaboration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, approves the rule change tomorrow [which they did], banks would be free to carry troubled assets on their books at higher prices, avoiding requirements to shore up balance sheets with new capital they cannot get now.
But potential buyers of toxic assets will make their own valuation assessments regardless of what the accounting rules allow the banks to claim, says Wharton finance professor Itay Goldstein. “After all, if assets are not marked down, investors would still fear that they are worth less” than they once were.
Mark-to-market defenders say that using market prices is the best way to derive honest values. Allowing banks too much latitude would paper over the problem, making banks look healthier than they are, they say. “It’s an issue because … the year before the crisis was the first in which firms were required to follow a new set of fair-value measurement tools,” according to Wharton accounting professor Catherine M. Schrand….
On the other hand, if the government’s toxic-asset purchase program does generate significant trading, the whole issue of how to value the assets remaining on banks’ books will become moot, since there will then be enough fresh data to justify mark-to-market accounting, says Wharton finance professor Franklin Allen.
Skimpy Trading
Many experts acknowledge that the skimpy trading in toxic assets creates difficulties. “If there is no trading then you can’t really mark to market,” argues Wharton finance professor Jeremy J. Siegel. “I think there’s been trading that is at too low a price…. I wouldn’t mind suspending mark-to-market for those assets right now.”
But Susan M. Wachter, professor of real estate at Wharton, thinks that for the financial and economic crises to begin to ease, the “murky” condition of banks must be clarified. That cannot be done with accounting changes that simply make the assets look more valuable, she says, arguing that the banks must instead be encouraged to get rid of those holdings. “In order for capital to come to banks, they must disgorge their non-performing assets. That mark-to-market component is necessary.”
Banks’ in-house systems cannot give accurate valuations because too many factors are unknown, such as whether the economy will deteriorate further and whether there will be additional government stimulus spending, according to Wachter.For the banks, a chief benefit of flexible accounting is that it will make them less likely to run afoul of capital-reserve requirements, since their balance sheets will look stronger.Siegel notes that if capital requirements are the issue, regulators could help the banks by easing those instead of changing accounting rules. Wharton finance professor Marshall E. Blume, agrees. “The regulators are in a difficult position, because these companies clearly are not as viable as they were. Having said that, you don’t change the accounting to make it look like they are viable.”
Wachter insists that capital requirements should be based on market-to-market rules, because investors who could pump capital into the banks will be reluctant to do so if they think accounting tricks make banks look healthier than they are. Easing the mark-to-market requirement, she says, “is a road to a long and sustained recession.”
The Stock Market had the same value on 9/11/01 & 9/11/09
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/dow-91101-91109/
EXCERPT:
“This has been circulating Wall Street trading desks via UBS’ Art Cashin: On both 9/11/01 and 9/11/09, the Dow industrials were at 9605 (it was the close of the 9/10 in 2001, since markets never opened on 9/11 2001).”
EXCERPT:
“This has been circulating Wall Street trading desks via UBS’ Art Cashin: On both 9/11/01 and 9/11/09, the Dow industrials were at 9605 (it was the close of the 9/10 in 2001, since markets never opened on 9/11 2001).”
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