Interest Rates

With all of us so concerned about our personal and nation finances, we are told that we need to get out there and spend. In Utah we have handled the situation very well with the hard work of all involved. Some of the very banks that we are bailing out with taxpayers help and now we find out that they are gouging us! Some have reported that their credit card interest rates spiked at 23.9%! President Obama has waded into the issue and advised that while the nation is in the current economic conditions, this is not the smartest thing to do.

When we talk about credit cards, we often forget the role of the merchant. How many times have you gone to the store and they don’t accept certain types of credit cards, that is because of the fee placed on them by the credit card companies. Sometimes the merchant loses up to 3% percent on every transaction. Imagine that times by a gazzilion people. Now to make things worse, we see bills being sent out late, if only by a day or two, and now the interest rates go sky high.

Caller Randy felt the credit card industry isn’t the only one taking advantage of American citizens. The medical insurance industry is another one that is taking advantage of us. To a degree we all have a responsibility here with the education that we have provided for our kids. For those that say they had nothing to do with the problem have everything to do with it.

Caller Patricia used to work for a company that took calls for over 20 credit card companies. They had to have extensive training before they could talk to any customers. Every company is different and had different rules and regulations.

Caller Matt told about a documentary that was made about how credit card companies purposely withhold payments so that they can charge the higher interest rates.

Caller Cindy thinks that the credit cards shouldn’t be regulated, but should be left alone. If we are to pressure them into taking up the slack for those that don’t pay on time, they will make it hard for those that have excellent credit scores and stop giving them benefits.

Tightening the belt

President Obama pointed out that the American people have a confidence gap in where and how their money is spent by the government. He challenged the government find a way to save 100 million dollars. 100 million dollars is merely a drop in the bucket these days. President Obama wants to save to first ladies pet project and needs to cut 100 million dollars from the national budget to do so.

Where would you cut things?

Caller Todd thought that the post offices could take the hit to find these funds.

Caller Sheri felt that President Obama could cut back on welfare by allowing the disadvantaged to serve at the same time that they receive help to cut down operation costs.

Caller Tyler proposed that if the government held off on buying new automobiles then they would have the money in no time.

Caller Todd is thankful for this god-given nation and thought that the streamline could start with the army core of engineers and secondly the tax code. We want them to function, but how many offices do you need? Every other business is having to take some cuts, so should the government.

Predator or Defender?

Are pay day lending establishments predators or are they a useful institutions? Sadly, many of those that do use these services are getting themselves deeper and deeper into a hole of debt. If you want to see smoke come out of KSL’s financial advisor Clark’s ears then mention pay-day loaning. There were 21 pay day lenders in Salt Lake City in 2007, only two years later there are more than 50! How many people really understand the idea of personal finance? With the fact that so many exist, what does this say about our society? What does it say about credit unions or other financial institutions?

Payday loaners are the tip of the iceberg; they are the product of a larger problem.

Are they predators or are they defending a place in the marketplace?

Caller Mary has a loan for 700 dollars. She has to pay 70 dollars a week for 12 weeks. She is a grandma raising two grandkids and works full-time but is able to somehow stay afloat. She feels that payday lenders should be outlawed.

Caller Greg would vote for the establishment of payday loaners. There is a desperation factor that the payday loaners meet. It’s amazing how many businesses do not cater to their customers’ needs.

Caller Mike thought that in the financial world there are so many other providers that we don’t have to use the payday loaners. There is a need out there that is not being addressed by the banks and credit unions. Maybe it is a matter of more convenient hours?

Immigration

I truly believe that I will be judged on how I judge others. And there will come a point where I will have to stand before my maker. I will say that I saw these people as my brothers and sisters. I will know that there is justice that must be met, but yet there is also mercy that should be given. The Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner D. Lance Davenport recently spoke at a community center in a Hispanic community and said they are concerned with traffic safety and the community. The journalist who covered this thought that this promise only held true to the Hispanic population. The Utah Highway Patrol, according to Commissioner Davenport, would be in charge of renewed immigration efforts.

If we want the Utah Highway Patrol to be able to do this, then we have to give them additional funding. They were the first department to get the short end of the stick on the budget cut last October. The Department of Corrections received a 20precent budget cut. Chief Burbank thought it was absurd that we isolate a community so that they fear to call the police for fear that others in the community will get busted.

A caller whose parents are from Mexico told of how her father came here illegally. All the kids have graduated from college and her parents haven’t done anything wrong. Her dad tried to legalize the right way and immigration wouldn’t let him. Most people that are upset with immigration are racist.

Caller John takes real issue with the previous caller and the accusation that if you are concerned about immigrants that you are racist. He also agrees with Doug in that you can’t round everybody up and send them home. His thought is that action needs to be taken to stop illegal immigration and deal with those here.

Caller Tyler agreed that there needs to be addition funding given to local law enforcement agencies. Doug agreed that action needs to be taken but the army that we would need to enforce immigration is off the charts.

Airport Privacy

We should have nothing to hide, why do we care? I am just glad that the police are out there doing their job. However, our founding fathers died so that when the police knocked on your door, you could simply refuse to let them enter your home. This is a sacred American right. You have that right and privacy is a big part of it.

Now they are trying to enhance the capabilities of the scanners in airports. How far are we going to go on this? You see some real detail on these scanners. How do you feel when you go to the airport and people have the ability to look at ANYTHING. Some people use the airport as much as some use the UTA bus.

How far do we go to insure our security at the airport? How much of a right to privacy can you expect?

Congressman Jason Chaffetz joined the program from Capitol Hill. There comes a point where we over step privacy barriers and this is way, way over the boundary. The TSA is doing a terrible job to let people know of the details. The scanners are able to detect a bead of sweat on someone’s back, imagine what else they can see. If you refuse to go through the machine then you cannot get to your flight. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Doug has a high respect for the TSA and understands that they will most likely not abuse this. But the fact that these images are available is scary. These definitely aren’t something you want your kids looking at, so why would you want anyone else to have access to them. If people actually say what was required for them to get on an airplane, they would be absolutely appalled.

Caller Josh is an aviation student at UVU and researched this topic closely recently. What he found was that the machine is able to focus on specific aspects or regions of the body. Doug acknowledged this but what happens when people get clever and start hiding things in different places.

Caller Alice agreed that the images are very, very specific. She has been flying since she was 6 months old and if they implement this technology she will not fly again.

11 year olds with possible felony

Set the time machine for 5^th grade in Mrs Anderson’s class. Doug was there with all of his great friends. I think of some of the things that we were expected to know and do in the 5^th grade. We are supposed to know the difference before right and wrong. According to Scholastic Parents we should be able to differentiate between fiction and non-fiction. We should now then be able to present a comprehensive report, long division, and retain facts from science from the year before. How many of you would have survived through the fifth, sixth, and seventh without a felony? When pornography appeared in an elementary school last week in American Fork, the parents weren’t called, the police were. Two fifth graders showed some classmates pornography and the school suspended them. Since the police were involved, this was brought to juvenile court. Now that it is in the legal system the prosecutors could charge the two with dealing harmful materials and could be charged with a second degree felony. The police say that most likely this will be the case. These images are disturbing and this is never appropriate, but to charge them with a felony! Reportedly these kids had never been in trouble before!

You talk to anybody and there is probably a story like this in anyone’s family. A police officer was able to use a little bit of judgment and instead of taking the kids to the station, he drags them home to the parents because the penalty will often be more effective. The laws are so tough these days that the officers have no choice.

Caller Ann knows one of the kids and affirmed that he had never been in trouble. The fact is that they don’t know a whole lot. Shouldn’t the teacher be charged with a felony too?

Caller Les thought that many time children are charged with the maximum because once lawyers become involved that the punishment is going to be reduced considerably. Everybody has to be able to claim a win and how they slapped with the maximum penalty but because they wanted to be lenient it was reduced.

One of the moms called in and told her take on the story. She went into the office and found her son in there and thought that he had gotten into a fight. He told her that he typed in a word on the computer and pictures of naked women came on the screen. The mother said that they were looking up cars and one of the peers suggested that he type in the word “lesbian” in the Google search box, which brought up pictures of naked women. Her first reaction was why would you do this and then she thought of how could you do this? The programs should be better than that. When it first happened she didn’t know what was going on. After waiting a couple of hours, the police officers read her son his rights and asked his about what had happened. After the questioning the kids were told that they would be charged with a felony for the distribution of pornographic material. These kids had never been in any kind of formal trouble ever.

Nuclear Waste

On top of the nuclear waste stored in Utah we talk about things that have been discovered by playgrounds and schools. At one time the Western desert used to be designated for things like this. Radioactive things give people creeps and rightly so. At the same time, where would you like them to be? If Utah were to become the place to store these things, there are a lot of people that would be concerned. Are we destined to accept foreign waste?

Dr. Dianne Nielson joined the program from Capitol Hill. Her understanding is that the NRC doesn’t have the federal authority to band the waste being shipped to the state. The Northwest Compact is what holds the authority. It is one of the compacts established by the state to be able to make the decision on how they want to manage the waste within the state. Later on the state agreed that waste could come from outside the compact. The NRC does confirm what the state said in that the Northwest Compact is what will determine what will be done with the waste.

Nothing will happen with regards to this waste until the state has reached a decision. The general sentiment is that they do not have the power or authority to band accepting outside waste. We should not approve the facilities to generate waste, but simply just to store the waste.

Better as a paper weight

51 volumes containing autobiographies, drama, dialogues etc. comprise the U.S. tax code. 70,320 pages long. With the math, we figured it would take you 24 years to read it if you were to read it like the USA Today A section each morning during breakfast. It needs to be blown up; it has got to go. All of our lives are so intertwined with this in the details of how many kids we have, bank accounts, assets etc. It has got to be simplified.

Caller Ron is in favor of the consumption of taxes. However taxes are so intertwined with our everyday life that it would seem almost impossible to do this. It needs to be done in logical process starting with corporation taxes.

Who in the world can sort out all those modifications? Do you or do you not allow reductions? Would the vast majority of things you buy be taxed in a flat tax? You bet. This would create a black market where you could buy things without taxes.

The system that we have now encourages more dishonesty. When asked to sign the tax return and vouch that you have given the most accurate information, the sentiments are “I sure hope so. But I am not sure?”

Caller Louise questioned whether there would be taxes on everything you buy? The theory is that with a flat tax is on whatever your income is. There might be a slight reduction for home payments or charitable contributions.

Caller Jason thought that it would be easier to have a bonfire and burn them all. He has spent his tax refunds already and helping that economy along.

Conscience Clause

Many hospitals in the old days and today have religious affiliations. Some of these doctors and nurses could be in your very congregation. What if the government were to come and dictate that your practice must provide certain procedures if it is deemed legal? What if a deeply religious doctor were asked to perform abortions or even the morning after pills? The Conscious Clause allows health care workers to not participate in any practice they feel is contrary to their beliefs. The Obama administration is working to reverse the Conscious Clause.

Every time these laws have been pitched the question is raised that cannot religious institutions also practice their freedoms, their civil rights to act how they will? Are we really going to get into the position of forcing others to do something against the dictates of their conscience? There are plenty of people that would rather get a new job.

Planned Parenthood is working to end the Conscience Clause because it puts women in jeopardy in that few physicians will perform abortions. The Supreme Court established in the Roe vs. Wade case that health care workers should not be held to practice procedures against their personal morals.

We are not out of line to ask how many more steps to go before the actual government will ask you to go beyond your own morals. Should we not also consider the rights of those in health care and not just those seeking these medical procedures?

Caller Lori mentioned the Hippocratic Oath includes that doctors should do no harm. Is this asking doctors to break this oath?

Caller Alexis is from the Buffalo, NY area. She told of how there is a large community of Catholic healthcare in her area where many doctors have been forced to leave their jobs because they will not perform certain procedures.

Its a pirate's life for me

Somali pirates took American oil ship captive off the coast of the horn of Africa. What we have here is a good old stand-off. We have some of the pirates in a lifeboat holding the captain hostage, out of fuel just staring about each other. This sounds like something that Jefferson dealt with in his time. We have to go back a hundred years to see the last time that this happened. There is so much at stake considering what these ships and their cargo is worth. Secretary Clinton told that the world must come together to end piracy.

This is an international problem. All the money that pours into the UN could be used to create a protective force that would accompany international vessels. If the UN ever wanted to step in to say that they weren’t useless, this would be the chance.

Caller Givon thought they need to hire a watchman that could protect these tankers with millions of dollars worth of cargo on it.

Caller Mike imagined if he had any ownership in one of these boats he would have a permanent guard on board that could prevent something like this from happening.

Caller Jim pointed out that we have satellite technology that would allow us to identify where these pirates came from. It also seems like it was easier to rob the ship than it is to rob a convenience store.

Caller Brad felt that we need to send out a message that we are not going to tolerate behavior like this.

One of these days these pirates are going to run amuck. One of the crew members could decide they don’t have anything to lose and open fire on the pirates. Considering how flammable the cargo on these ships are something bad could happen.

Refugee Center Shooting

A man walked into the refugee center in New York and opened fire killing several people before he turned the gun on himself. The analysis was that this was a crime against that system and the economic problems. This is completely false. Normal people do not do this. This had nothing to do with the economy or weapons; the man was mentally ill.

How do mentally ill people get their hands on weapons?

The analysis up to this point has been completely wrong. The shooter wrote a note explaining how he had been abused by cops. This was the crime of a mentally ill person.

Caller Tiffany didn’t have a solution to the problem of gun control because he would have lashed out in another way if he didn’t have a gun.

Caller Joyce problem with restricting the problem to those that are mentally ill is that there is no way to screen everyone.

Caller Todd thought that the craziest person out there is the person that blamed this on the gun. You can’t stop crazy people from getting them.

Sedetary Hereditary

1 in 5 four year olds are obese. How is it that you get to that point? When you think about it our kids our kind of following in our footsteps or we are pushing our lifestyles on our kids. We all know that we sit around too much and should we be surprised if our kids do that as well? The American Way is simply to take a diet pill and that solves the problem. Should doctors develop these for children?

Caller Nancy agreed that lifestyle plays a large part of the problem. To add to that there is this toxic solution of diet pills that needs to be taken care of.

Caller Jenny pointed out that you have a lot of homes where both the parents come home from work and plop down on the couch and the kids only do likewise. You have to figure out how to be active even in the winter months.

Can we really demand our children to live lives that we are not willing to live ourselves?

Caller Julie thinks that everyone is talking about food when they should be concerned about lifestyle. Kids need sports to keep them active.

Caller Rob told that as a kid he rode the bus home and there was an obese girl that rode the bus as well. She was the subject of many jokes but every day without fail the girl’s mother would meet her as she exited the bus and would have a plate of cookies or brownies for her. Rob felt that we point our fingers at others too easily instead of looking at our own lifestyle.

President, should I shut it down?

We pay our bills; check our stocks on the internet every day. I appreciate the fact that the law makers are looking into the security of the environment. What will be the actual presidential power over the internet? The president could potentially disconnect anyone from the internet at any time. As we move into this brave new world we become ever more involved with the internet. The extreme case of 9/11 still gives the government cause to pass something like this. In that case should President Bush have had this power over the internet?

The experts that are watching this say that there will be no review; they will just shut it down if there is any question.

Caller Clinton expressed that there is not enough safeguard against the government’s regulations. He is a computer geek himself and does not endorse hackers but does not see enough threat for the government to step in.

As we look into the future of this cyber world and we identify how much of our lives are dependent on it, we need to take a proactive role. We give the government considerable power to shut down other types of systems, like the airplanes on 9/11, and should this extent to cyberspace? We ought to be able to regulate that.

Caller Cameron thought there is a time where in national security measures need to be made. With the internet there might be specific aspects that could be shut down without the entire system.

Caller Matt feels outraged by the thought of anyone having this kind of power. The people that are sponsoring this bill don’t have a comprehensive knowledge of the internet.

DeChristopher the Winnie

University of Utah Economics student Tim DeChristopher bid on 13 drilling parcels near Arches and Cayonlands with no intention of paying the 1.8 million for them. He is most likely not going to spend ten years in jail and he is not going to pay 750,000 in fines. The bottom line is that he needs to realize this is serious. He told how he thought that Obama administration was going to bail him out. Not going to happen. This guy doesn’t get that we are in the middle of economic hardship. These people like DeChristopher want you to believe that they are going to put a derrick right under Rainbow Bridge. They are nuts, it doesn’t happen that way. Doug has an oil derrick across the street from his house and they are not raping and pillaging the land. We can do extract oil and be sensitive to the surrounding environment.

DeChristopher stepped up to take away jobs in these hard economic times so that he could have his ten minutes of glory in the name of the environment. He is not Rosa Parks, DeChristopher is just a weenie.

What sentence would you give Tim DeChristopher for his crime?

Caller Wendy felt that DeChristopher should work as an unpaid intern working to solve these problems in a productive way

Caller Spencer felt that DeChristopher was successful in the delay of further drilling. Doug felt there are rare times that civil disobedience. There is no way that he could be considered successful. This only proves how clueless DeChristopher is to the situation.

Caller Jeff felt that punishment for this should be given. This is not how business in Utah is done. Maybe those at the auction should have a say in the punishment as well or should receive restitution. DeChristopher stole the potential or delayed the potential revenue, he stole the time and efforts out into the auction and he is a criminal.