POETRY: OF AIR THAT YOU HAVE SHARED WITH ME

Might I describe to you in detail
my passions and desires for you?
May I share with you, my love,
your truest beauty through my eyes?
Sweeter than the air I breathe
is your voice in my straining ear.
The comfort of your hand in mine
will ever allay my deepest fears.
To feel you quiver at my touch,
it is the warmth of the summer sun.
You hold me as if to never let go
and we overcome the pain of the world.
Refreshing as the rain on my face
your laughter heals my very soul.
Pray, my love, this dream never ends
and I will not know a day without you.


2


My love for you swells deep in my heart,
and seeps through every pore;
I long to hold you in my arms
and love you--nothing more.

But when I pull you close to me,
you sweetly shut the door;
And pain exhales silently,
and mutes the lion's roar.

With mangled mane and vanished pride,
he knows not what to do;
So from the toothless jaws whispers...
my heart alone for you


3

Somewhere, in every breath I steal,
there is a trace, however small may be,
of air that you have shared with me,
of your love that was made to heal.

Any star that winks up?in the sky,
and keeps you in its delicate light.
Stands guard on my command, all night,
On my word, keeps vigilance on you, my love!

Every sea, every ocean shrinks in size,
Every cloud in the shrouded day,
Seems to have driven away,
My reason so logical and wise.

My blood boils with fervent heat
Intoxicated with amorous sensuality
Invigorated with egoistic sexuality,
Just sighing for the time we?ll meet.

Distance... separation, it?s all in the mind,
It?s a legendary fable that needs no woe...
Romantic and gentle, a candle-light dinner for two
How many suns will ignite when we finally meet in kind?

 


4


It is sonnet night in my soul, 
the poetry floods me.
In the dimness of your room
your eyes of charm glisten.

My heart overflows with infinite happiness
when I feel your eyes smile on me in silence.
The warmth of your enchantment illuminates the night;
it seems that the moon always accompanies you.

In you everything is poetry... from the feet to the head.
Your eyes the color of wet grass
point out the way to reach your soul.

Tonight in sonnets I will walk with your soul.
I will drink of your source until my thirst is satiated
in the deep ocean of your sweet loving.

JOURNAL

It's been a tough week. The medical center that I work in started a new EMR...EPIC. I was trained during the summer, but still it's a big change in writing your notes. I did very well.

I got my new property tax bill for this 2015. I got a big reduction. I am so happy.

My sister is getting surgery done tomorrow. I took the day off to take her to the hospital.

POETRY: IF I BECAME.....

There are four seasons in a year,
Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.
I love you through them all.

My love in the Winter,
will never go cold.
It will burn with the sun,
long after we grow old.

My love in the Spring
is like a red, red rose.
It blossoms more each say,
and will never go away.

My love in the Summer
is warm and bright.
Long after the sunsets,
and through the night.

My love in the Fall
will never change.
It stays ripe with color
just the same.

There are four seasons in a year.
Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.
I love you through them all.



2

Hear a heart that matches
my resistance, my insistance to you.
Changing night skies
into blue lite eyes
of blackened souls.
History fathoms portrays
each a star not quite seen
thru naked eyes.
I watch, I wait.
A tempest teapots boil
as teachers pet, teachers test
grading the best, the rest.

I beg of you
a mere autumn leaf. I am not
though, a thing of being of tales.
No wonders, no seeds to sow
here cast tempted to flesh.
I wait, I am here.



3


Your soft eyes in the morning dew,
are more beautiful than I could ever dream,

What would I think, if I didn't have your love,
I'd be lost in an empty city...china-puzzle unsolved?
Secret within secret- within secret- within...
only you can keep me on track, make me win!

Let's elope, let's leave all this behind.
I only want your love, delicate, sweet and kind?

With the tip of my tongue I gently catch what I seek,
a tear trickling down, ever so slowly, from your cheek.
It's salty, yet exquisite taste, exploding on my tongue,
as I wonder, tell,? my love ? ...have I ever wronged?

Your delicate eyes probe my soul for confidence,
for faith and valour, for truth and immaculate credence.
That harness my heart, fulfil my every need,
make me your knight on a silvery steed!

Oh, how I long for days of yore, of legends turned to dust,
when courtship and high love, bravery and loyalty,
were more than mere words spoken in trust,
and forever showed us the way to... infinity.




4

I lie beside you in the warmth of the night;
I can feel you breathe,
I can hear you sigh so softly.
Tell me now this feeling won?t change-
   It?s a lasting love.
I need to know I can depend on you.
Make me believe you,
Promise you will stay by my side
   Thru the good times and bad.
Bring me your kisses for the rest of my life,
   Feel my days and light my nights.
   I will always be there-
   Tell me you will be there, too.

I have all I want when it comes to loving you.
You are my only reason, you are my only truth.
I need you like water, like breath, like rain.
   I need you like mercy from heaven's gates.
Rescue me from this world full of pain.
When the hope moves me to courage again,
You are the love that rescues me,
when I need someone on whom I can depend.
I can?t go back now, because you brought me too far.
I need you like the sky needs stars.

When I was lost, I could not see.
Now I am found and my heart is free.
   I was alone dreaming of you;
I could not imagine this coming true.
So much joy in everything you touch-
   I want to thank you so much.
Look at the sky, tell me what you see-
   Close your eyes and explain it to me.


5


If I became poor
     would you care to feed me?
If I became homeless
     would you provide me with shelter?
If I'm stranded in the rain
     would you protect me from showers...?
If I felt cold
     would you warm me with your body?

If I became ill
     would you become my strength?
If I lost my vision
     would you be my sight?
If darkness surrounds me
     would you be my light?
If I rescue you from danger
     would you shower me with praise?

If I became your servant
     would you treat me with respect?
If I became an outcast
     would you accept me or turn me away?
If I'm lost in the ocean
     would you let me swim or sink?
Tell me, if I give you my heart
     would you keep it or break it?




6


Not from the sun,
nor silvered stars,
this golden warmth
knows no bars.
Nor from the clouds,
or moonlit nights,
or any other
natural sights.
But from the lips,
of one so dear,
the one that calls
or whispers clear
the words only a
lover speaks,
that touches us
forever deep.


7

Transcending all the standards,
ignoring our differences,
I was drawn to you.
I saw beyond your lovely appearance
far enough to see your soul.
Timeless,
ageless,
I fell in love.
There were songs
I wanted to sing,
but you were not there,
so they were left unsung...
There were sights
I wanted to share,
but you were not there,
so they were left unseen...
There were stories
I wanted to tell,
but you were not there,
so they were left untold...
I listened to my thoughts,
but they felt as empty as I felt.
I look at the images of my face,
but the smile is unreal.
The dreams of my life
and the pieces of my heart,
shattered at your utter strife,
then slowly fell apart.
Through the days that pass
I live a life of alienation and despair.
I search dawn and twilight,
but you are no longer there.
Just like two best friends fight,
you defied me like a thief in the night.
As I walk the streets of life
alone and full of doubt,
I can no longer remember
what your love was all about.
I stood so still
with a tear in my eye,
but now you are gone
and with you my soul.
Within the ashes of my soul
There comes a time
To release the anger,
To unleash the pain.
Within the ashes of my soul
There comes a time
When I need to let go
Of the love that I gave.
Were not my thoughts pure, sincere?
Don't taunt, don't tease me.
It's just that I really did care.

PERSONAL: INTIMACY IS

Most often we fall in love with the person we think we love, only to discover that for them, we are just for passing time. While the one who truly loves us remains a stranger..I just don’t settle for the one who’s passing time. My life is too precious

Intimacy is not who you let touch you. Intimacy is who you text at 3am about your dreams and fears. Intimacy is giving someone your attention, when ten other people are asking for it. Intimacy is the person always in the back of your mind, no matter how distracted you are. If a person wants to be a part of your life, they will make an obvious effort to do so. I usually think twice before reserving a space in my heart for people who do not make an effort to stay.I just want someone who won’t get annoyed when I text them six times or in all caps. Someone I can go on long drives with and can sing along to the radio with. Someone I can eat pizza with at 2am and kiss at 6pm. Someone who chooses me everyday and never thinks twice about it. Hot bodies are good for pleasure and looking good on your arm, but a kind hearts are good for loving my broken parts and accepting me for what I am. Beautiful souls are good for teaching me about life and happiness. Gentle spirits are good for bringing peace and harmony into my life.Honest consciences are good for trust and reliability. Playful characters are good for laughter and fun  You see when I am 80 and I am  looking at the last 60 years of my life,  I want to ask myself what kind of person do I want to have spent it with? Relationships are never easy. Some days you’re going to wake up and that love you know you have for the person in the bed next to you, isn’t going to come so naturally. We always say “no one told us it was going to be this hard” but they do.We choose not to listen, because it seems so unreasonable that one day you will be able to keep your hands off of each other. One day you will spend your free time away from each other. The only way you can make a relationship last is if you work at it every day and never give up on it. Because if you take time to fight and argue and still can’t imagine leaving them, then you love them. And that’s the kind of love that’s forever.There comes a point in your life when you realize: Who matters, who never did, who won’t anymore, and who always will. 

ARTICLE: 10 Reasons That We Still Haven’t Found Aliens By S. GRANT

The Fermi Paradox, first introduced by physicist Enrico Fermi, asks the question, “Where is everybody?” Or, more specifically, “Where are all the aliens?”

When we factor in the size of the universe, the number of Earth-like planets, and a range of other variables (as outlined in the Drake equation), there should be tens of thousands or more extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy. And with the galaxy being around 10 billion years old, scientists say that intelligent worlds have had plenty of time to contact one another. So if aliens should statistically exist, why haven’t we encountered any yet?

10Earth Is Special


The Rare Earth Hypothesis suggests that the chain of events that created life on this planet was so complex that only a biological perfect storm could recreate it elsewhere. While there may be Earth-like planets, none of them have exactly what it takes for intelligent life to develop. In other words, we haven’t met any aliens, because none are out there, or they are so few and far between that contact is highly improbable.

The major factor that makes Earth so hospitable to life is its long period of relatively stable climatic conditions, which is due to the planet’s unique orbit and position. Without our precise distance from the Sun and Moon, the planet would likely be too hot or cold, have too little oxygen, and be too unstable to support any life beyond bacteria.

Paleontologist Peter Ward and astronomer Donald Brownlee were the first to introduce the Rare Earth Hypothesis. Even though nearly 15 years have passed since they publicized the theory, and Earth-like planets have since been detected, they are still confident that the odds of those worlds having life are extraordinarily low.

9All Intelligent Life Hits A Stumbling Block


According to the Great Filter theory, alien life does exist, but intelligent life is incapable of technologically advancing enough for long-distance space communication or travel. Although our modern spaceships, satellites, and radios may make it seem like we’re getting closer, we’ll inevitably reach a barrier or catastrophe that will either wipe us out or cause technology to devolve.

We know cataclysmic natural disasters periodically strike Earth, so it’s possible that these types of events hit worlds everywhere, sending intelligent life back to the Stone Age before technology can adequately develop. Or, maybe we annihilate ourselves, such as through nuclear war. Whatever the filter is, it seems to mean nothing but bad news for humans. Not only will we never communicate with space beings—we’ll probably die trying.

However, there is one possible bright side. Some think that we are the first individuals to make it past the filter, so we’ll eventually be the first super-intelligent beings to roam space.

8They’ve Moved Out Of The Universe


According to futurist John Smart’s Transcension Hypothesis, intelligent alien life once existed in our universe, yet it became so advanced that it moved on to greener pastures. More specifically, aliens became so evolved that they stopped looking at outer space and instead focused on inner space.

The concept can be compared to the miniaturization we’ve experienced in computers. What initially began as an enormous, room-filling technology progressively became smaller (even pocket-sized) while simultaneously growing in complexity and power. To Transcension supporters, intelligent life evolves in much the same way, constantly working toward a denser, more efficient use of space, time, energy, and matter (“STEM compression“). Eventually, we’ll be living and operating at the nano-scale until we become so small that we create and exist in a black hole outside this space-time continuum.

To Smart and others, black holes are the ultimate destination. They allow for ideal computing and learning, time travel, energy harvesting, and more. Civilizations that don’t achieve this destiny are failures.

Other cosmic beings may be working toward their own transcendence. Like humans, they might emit space broadcasts, but these types of signals are supposedly the work of immature civilizations and are unlikely to be successful. Also, based on Moore’s Law (that computing power doubles every two years), these beings would likely reach transcendence before exploring the cosmos.

7Earth Isn’t As Great As We Think


Perhaps it’s hubris to think that aliens would even have an interest in us or our planet. Worlds far more interesting and life-supporting may exist, and intelligent beings would much rather spend their time focusing on super-habitable placesrather than Earth. This theory is the complete opposite of the Rare Earth theory—Earth isn’t special at all.

An alien race capable of traveling or communicating across light years would no more care about chitchatting with us than a human would converse with a fly. Likewise, they’d undoubtedly have their own superior technologies and would not require any of our measly resources. If, however, they did need to harvest minerals or elements, they wouldn’t have to visit Earth. Those things are found floating all over space.

Furthermore, no matter how intelligent the beings, traveling across light years is no easy feat. What are the odds they’d invest all that energy coming here when there are 8.8 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way? For followers of this theory, to think Earth is everyone’s destination is to suffer from the same geocentrism that led to Galileo’s erroneous persecution.

6We’re Living In A Virtual Reality


Arguably one of the most difficult to accept explanations to the Fermi Paradox is the Planetarium Hypothesis. Our world is a “form of virtual reality ‘planetarium,’ designed to give us the illusion the universe is empty.” We haven’t discovered any extraterrestrial life because those extraterrestrials haven’t designed that into the program.

The fundamentals of this theory date back to Descartes, who asked, “How can we know that the world around us is real—are we just a brain in a vat, which thinks it’s living in the real world?”

Instead of being brains in a vat, however, most modern supporters of this notion think we’re in a computer simulation designed by advanced aliens. These aliens are capable of harnessing enough energy to manipulate matter and energy on galactic scales. Why would the aliens want to watch us like ants in a farm? Maybe just for fun, or maybe they just made us to see if they could.

As unlikely as the Planetarium Hypothesis may sound, professional philosophers and physicists are serious about this idea. They say that we’re more likely to be artificial intelligences in a fabricated world than to have our own minds. Furthermore, we will likely discover the simulation, since we’ll inevitably notice a glitch in the system or devise an adequate test to prove the theory.

5We Live In The Cosmic Boonies


Although intelligent alien life might exist, our planets may be too far apart to make communication practical or purposeful. Earth may be so far away from other inhabited planets that we’ve simply been overlooked. If that doesn’t feel lonely enough, some claim most other worlds exist relatively close together in clusters and are interacting with each other, while we’re off in cosmic no-man’s-land missing out on the party.

The roots of this idea come from a mathematical theory known as percolation, which describes how things clump in a random environment. Based on the percolation theory, the universe naturally formed with areas of large clustered growth and a few smaller areas of growth in outlier positions. Other intelligent beings are in the big cluster, and Earth is an isolated outlier.

Instead of trying to make contact with these faraway beings, some, like Stephen Hawking, suggest that we continue to lie low. Hawking says that if we pick up on an alien signal, “We should be wary of answering back, until we have evolved.” Otherwise, we may suffer a fate akin to the Native Americans after Columbus arrived.

4We Haven’t Spotted Their Signals (Yet)

Photo credit: Dave Deboer

Scientists like Frank Drake and the late Carl Sagan have argued the “absence of evidence is very different from evidence of alien absence.” Alien hunting has been held back by lack of government funding, which is necessary to afford extensive alien-tracking equipment and resources. Historically, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) programs have had to rely on borrowed radio telescopes and other equipment, which they could only use for a limited time. These hindrances have made it virtually impossible to make any real progress.

Still, there is some good news—at least for those who think making alien contact is a good idea. The Allen Telescope Array, a radio telescope array specially designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, became operational in 2007. This mega-telescope (consisting of 42 individual 6-meter-wide (20 ft) telescopes) was largely funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. After numerous setbacks, it finally seems ready to begin doing some serious space exploration. If anything on Earth is capable of picking up alien signals, this is the device.

3We Can’t Recognize Their Signals


Even if other planets are hospitable to life, would the beings there evolve similarly to living things on Earth? Maybe they are so different that neither of us would recognize a signal from the other. Comparable to how bats visualize sound waves while we only see light, it’s possible that humans and aliens operate with entirely different senses.

As cosmologist and astrophysicist Lord Rees pointed out, “They could be staring us in the face, and we just don’t recognize them. The problem is that we’re looking for something very much like us, assuming that they at least have something like the same mathematics and technology. I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive.”

Things get especially tricky when trying to connect with a highly advanced race because they might use communication methods (such as neutrinos or gravitational waves) beyond our technological understanding. Likewise, our primitive radio emissions might look like nothing more than white noise to them. If aliens and people are indeed extremely unalike, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever make contact and solve the Fermi paradox—especially so long as we’re anthropomorphizing aliens and expecting them to communicate as we do.

2Super-Organisms Are Inherently Suicidal


The Medea Hypothesis, coined by paleontologist Peter Ward, is the notion that humans and other super-organisms carry within themselves the seeds of self-destruction. In this way, it very much ties in with the Great Filter theory, since it suggests that we end up dying before evolving enough to make alien contact.

The hypothesis is named after the murderous Medea from Greek mythology, who killed her own children. In this case, the planet is Medea, and all living things are her offspring. We don’t want to die, but Mother Earth made us destined to kill ourselves. Extinction is built into our biology to ensure that we are eliminated before we create too much of an imbalance on Earth. Once humans become an incurable plague on the planet, we will do something to guarantee our own demise.

Ward believes that almost all previous mass extinctions were brought on by living organisms. For instance, he blames the two Snowball Earth periods from millions of years ago on plants that proliferated so wildly that they absorbed excessive amounts of CO2. This brought about global cooling and consequently the plants’ demise. Similarly, if humans really are the root of today’s climate change, we may be well on the way to guaranteeing that our own species can’t survive on the planet.

In short, our internal suicidal clock will run out long before we get the chance to connect with aliens.

1They Walk Among Us


It sounds like science fiction, yet people in prominent positions are confident that aliens live and work all around us. For example, former Canadian defense minister Paul Hellyer gave an interview in 2014 in which he claimed that 80 different species of alien life live on Earth. Some of them (including Nordic blondes) look nearly identical to humans. Another group, the “Short Greys,” appear more like stereotypical aliens and stay relatively hidden from the general population.

Hellyer is not alone in his claims. Physicist Paul Davies from Arizona State University and Dr. Robert Trundle from Northern Kentucky University have similar opinions about the existence of aliens on the planet. To Hellyer, Davies, Trundle, and those who share their beliefs, the Fermi paradox has already been answered—aliens do exist, and whether humans realize it or not, they interact with us on a daily basis.

Despite experiencing a great deal of criticism from their peers and the public, these men continue to be outspoken in their opinions.

ARTICLE: The truth of what most doctors think about Obamacare is frightening Jack Dennis

What our doctors truly think about Obamacare may frighten you.

Most Americans don’t realize there is good reason that only 14 percent of the nation’s 400,000 licensedphysicians are still members of the American Medical Association (AMA).

AMA was long the advocate for the nation’s doctors and “abandoned the needs of the physician years ago and has its own agenda,” states Dr. John Tedeschi, a primary-family care doctor in Robbinsville, New Jersey.

“Doctoring just isn’t the same,” Dr. Tedeschi, who has been practicing medicine for more than 30 year says. “The practice of medicine, its costs and medical policies, are now dictated and controlled by groups that don’t know the first thing about medicine, nor the people it serves.”

The AMA, who for decades made their money from physician dues, has been bleeding profusely with membership decline. Membership has declined by over 75,000 since 2002. But somehow, they are reporting growing revenues. In 2012 it was $239 million, with $70 million coming from “Royalty Revenue.”

The AMA is paid, in their partnership with the government, by the medical coding records system they created that is mandated for all doctors and hospitals. They are required to bill the government or private insurance through this system, but the constant changes of the bureaucracies and politics insures a continuing and ever growing cash flow. Forget that it is bankrupting our doctors, slowing our patient care, and creating a whole new variety of grim medical errors. By changing their position for Obamacare, the AMA may be losing credibility with doctors, but they are certainly earning more money.

“At one time, the practice of medicine in America was the envy of the world. Unfortunately, it has now been radically segmented,” Dr. Tedeschi, who lives in Morrisville, PA, indicated.

Dr. Tedeschi explains Obamacare is all about saving money and “where the money IS ultimately spent, is directed to special interest, profit-making organizations.”

The basis of Obamacare’s financial success depends on a formula devised by Ezekiel Emanuel. Emanuel assigns value to people’s lives to distribute health care money among us.

“Benefit to the patient is secondary,” clarifies the doctor. “And physicians have nowhere to turn for help.”

Dr. Tedeschi explained that this radical change has been so choreographed—“better than a Broadway musical”—it happened so “gradually you hardly notice it at first. It’s a slow and deliberate erosion, targeting your family doctor, someone who will soon become a thing of the past.”

“Thanks to politics, insurance companies, special interest groups and other organizations, medicine is changing: the way it’s provided; who it’s provided to; exactly who the providers are; their qualifications; how much it costs and, literally, ‘who lives and who dies,’” the doctor is adamant. “The old saying ‘follow the money’” has never been truer than it is today.

“We’re moving away from the mission of medicine and more towards the business of healthcare, and these two endeavors are not the same thing,” Twila Brase, President of the Citizens’ Council For Health Freedom states. “We’re moving in the wrong direction.”

“When other people hold the dollars, the mission of medicine is compromised,” Brase reminds people frequently. “Whether it’s the government, or an insurance company, the agendas of the people with the money ultimately take precedence over the needs of the patient.”

Now that American physicians have seen enough of Obamacare to draw informed opinions, only 13 percent of them agree with AMA support of the law. Survey results from Jackson & Coker, a national physician recruitment firm confirm this. The AMA spends about $22 million a year since 2010 lobbying for Obamacare.

Despite 70 percent of U.S. doctors indicated they disagreed with the AMA on Obamacare, the White House used a stage propaganda event in the Rose Garden to lie to the American people in 2011. Obama’s staff actually handed out white lab coats to help legitimize the credibility of the health care plan.

Recent surveys of thousands of doctors indicate Obamacare is having a negative impact on healthcare for their patients. Almost 60 percent of doctors think they will most likely retire in the next five years because of the destructive Obama health plan. Doctors who originally voted Obama in 2008 changed their minds and voted against him by totals of over 15 percent.

“We are now told how much time we can spend with each patient,” Dr. Tedeschi explains. Doctor are mandated “what tests we can and cannot request. We are now forced to re-certify more frequently and answer questions, in many cases, unethically, just to serve their (Obamacare) financial needs.”

“We are told what kind of treatment can be provided to older patients, a type of ‘too old to treat’ approach because of the life expectancy of the patient and the cost to the federal government,” claims Dr. Tedeschi. With Obamacare, age 75 seems to be the magic age of when government healthcare declines for the benefit of the plan and not the patient.

“Even prescription medications that will effectively help the patient are routinely rejected by insurance companies and Medicare in favor of less expensive, ‘generic’ drugs that are archaic and simply don’t do the job,” Dr. Tedeschi states. “And we are aware, of course, of the conflict of interest of insurance companies having stock in the drugs that they do approve. It’s really sad

ARTICLE: New York Fed president criticized for ignoring flaws By Kevin Dugan

After blasting big banks for their rotten culture, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley can no longer ignore the stench emanating from his own bank.

Dudley, 61, came under fire on Friday after secretly recorded audio tapes emerged that purportedly show how the New York Fed is far too cozy with the financial institutions it is supposed to oversee.

Dudley, a former Goldman Sachs partner who was tapped to lead the New York Fed in 2009, has called on big banks to overhaul their culture while turning a blind eye to his institution’s own flaws, critics say.

“He’s basically putting it on the banks to be more ethical,” one former top regulator told The Post.

“I would say, what about you? This is the pot calling the kettle black.”

Last year, Dudley said in a speech that some banks have an “apparent lack of respect for law, regulation and the public trust.”

He went so far as to suggest that Wall Street firms needed to clean house and that more than just a few bad actors were to blame for the excesses that led to the financial crisis.

“There is evidence of deep-seated cultural and ethical failures at many large financial institutions,” Dudley said.

Next month, the bank overseer will host a workshop on “reforming culture and behavior” on Wall Street that will attract bigwigs like Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s top enforcer, Andrew Ceresney.

Dudley’s tough talk on the banks stands in stark contrast to the audio recordings that surfaced on Friday.

The 46 hours of tapes were recorded by Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who claims that her colleagues were afraid to push back against Goldman even on a deal they privately referred to as “shady.”

The Segarra tapes — which haven’t been released in full — amount to a WikiLeaks-type dump of information on powerful financial institutions and the financial regulators that are supposed to keep them in check.

The New York Fed — the most powerful of the regional Fed banks and the one with the most Wall Street contact — embeds its own examiners inside the institutions its regulates as opposed to bringing in outside lawyers to determine whether banks are playing by the rules.

Excerpts of the Segarra tapes, obtained by National Public Radio and ProPublica, paint a picture of deferential financial cops fretting about being too hard on banks and keeping embarrassing comments from Goldman execs out of meeting minutes.

Both the New York Fed and Goldman deny the allegations and claim that Segarra, who sued for wrongful termination, was fired for poor performance.

“The New York Fed categorically rejects the allegations being made about the integrity of its supervision of financial institutions,” it said in a statement. “The New York Fed works diligently to execute its supervisory authority in a manner that is most effective in promoting the safety and soundness of the financial institutions it is charged with supervising.”

PERSONAL: I HOPE TO FALL IN LOVE

I hope to fall in love with someone who always calls me back and never lets me fall asleep making me feel unwanted. I hope to fall in love with someone who holds my hand  I hope to fall in love with someone who tickles me and makes me smile on hard days and on easy ones. But beyond all that I hope to fall in love with someone who will never leave me behind and who will never take me for granted. Someone who will stand by me when I am right and stand by me when I am wrong. Someone who has seen me at your worst and loves me still. 

Some people are good at being in love. Some people are good at love. Two very different things, I think. Being in love is the romantic part—sex all the time, midday naps in the sheets, the jokes, the laughs, the fun, long conversations with no pauses, overwhelming separation anxiety … Just the best sides of both people, you know? But love begins when the excitement of being in love starts to fade: the stress of life sets in, the butterflies disappear, the sex becomes less frequent, the tears, the sadness, the arguments, the cattiness … The worst parts of both people. But if you still want that person by your side through all of those things … that’s when you know—that’s when you know you’re good at love

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person – without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.

LOVE: SO MANY PEOPLE ARE SO LONELY

People are sad because they are lonely. I will use post secret as an example. Don’t you think it’s just a little sad and pathetic that so many people have to write down their secrets on a postcard and send them in anonymously because there is not a single person in their lives they feel comfortable confiding in?  Most of which contain people who reveal their innermost thoughts and feelings to complete strangers likely because no one in real life pays attention to them. No one sees anything wrong with this?

In this day an age, it’s hard to admit you’re lonely. After all, we’re surrounded by an endlessly vast amount of people on a daily basis. We have co-workers, extended families, ect.... Sometimes we have children, foolishly hoping that a small baby will fulfill our need for companionship. When none of that works, we buy a dog. If, at the end of the day, nothing fills the void, we say to ourselves, “I have it all, so why I am a still unhappy? I have no right to be unhappy.The issue isn’t the amount of people in our lives, though. We has lost the ability to meaningfully connect with other people.The very day we became obsessed with the self esteem of our children is the first day shit started going downhill. We told our children they were unique and special and perfect. We insisted that the world would one day find them beautiful and smart and glib. We told them their individuality was their greatest asset and refused to criticize them even when it was sorely needed.The end result? A generation of children who are endlessly fascinated with themselves who can’t, for the life of them, understand why the rest of the world isn’t as enamored by their utterly uniquely genius minds as they are. So many people are infatuated with themselves, sometimes to the point of delusion. With so much of their love and energy devoted inward, how can we expect them to feel love for another?

I had a date recently...she was babbling about something ridiculous and no matter how many times I tried to change the subject, she kept referring back to our original discussion. Finally, I gave up and for two solid hours, my only reply to her was, “Mmhm.”SHE DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE. She happily chattered on for 2 straight hours, absolutely oblivious to the fact that I had quit listening to her. I was amazed.In reality, it takes two people to have a meaningful, enjoyable conversation. How can we expect to connect to people on a deeper level if we consistently fail to engage our conversational partners?Much like most problems in life, the solution to our loneliness is simple:If you want people to care about you, you should care about them.If you lack the ability to do that, then grab your prescription for prozac

ARTICLE: Revisiting the Lehman Brothers Bailout That Never Was By JAMES B. STEWART and PETER EAVIS

Inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, time was running out to answer a question that would change Wall Street forever.

At issue that September, six years ago, was whether the Fed could save a major investment bank whose failure might threaten the entire economy.

The firm was Lehman Brothers. And the answer for some inside the Fed was yes, the government could bail out Lehman, according to new accounts by Fed officials who were there at the time.

But as the world now knows, no one rescued Lehman. Instead, the firm was allowed to collapse overnight, a decision that, in cool hindsight, let problems at one bank snowball into a full-blown panic. By the time it was over, nearly every other major bank had to be saved.

Why, given all that happened, was Lehman the only bank that was not too big to fail? For the first time, Fed officials have offered an account that differs significantly from the versions that, for many, have hardened into history.


Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman at the time, Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former Treasury Secretary, and Timothy F. Geithner, who was then president of the New York Fed, have all argued that Lehman Brothers was in such a deep hole from its risky real estate investments that Fed did not have the legal authority to rescue it.

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Richard S. Fuld Jr., center, chief of Lehman Brothers, was heckled by protesters after testifying to Congress in October 2008 about the collapse. CreditSusan Walsh/Associated Press

But now, interviews with current and former Fed officials show that a group inside New York Fed was leaning toward the opposite conclusion — that Lehman was narrowly solvent and therefore might qualify for a bailout. In the frenetic events of what has become known as the Lehman weekend, that preliminary analysis never reached senior officials before they decided to let Lehman fail.

Understanding why Lehman was allowed to die goes beyond apportioning responsibility for the financial crisis and the recession that cost millions of ordinary Americans jobs and savings. Today, long after the bailouts, the debate rages over the Fed’s authority to bail out failing firms. Some Fed officials worry that when the next financial crisis comes, the Fed will have less power to shield the financial system from the failure of a single large bank. After the Lehman debacle, Congress curbed the Fed’s ability to rescue a bank in trouble.

Whether to save Lehman came down to a crucial question: Did Lehman have enough solid assets to back a loan from the Fed? Finding the answer fell to two teams of financial experts at the New York Fed. Those teams had provisionally concluded that Lehman might, in fact, be a candidate for rescue, but members of those teams said they never briefed Mr. Geithner, who said he did not know of the results.

“My colleagues at the New York Fed were careful and creative, and as demonstrated through the crisis that fall, we were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to try to protect the economy from the unfolding financial disaster,” Mr. Geithner said Monday in a statement to The New York Times. “We explored all available alternatives to avoid a collapse of Lehman, but the size of its losses were so great that they were unable to attract a buyer, and we were unable to lend on a scale that would save them.”

Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson said in recent interviews with The Times that they did not know about the Fed analysis or its conclusions.

Interviews with half a dozen Fed officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named, so as not to breach the Fed’s unofficial vow of silence, suggest some Fed insiders believed that the government had the authority to throw Lehman Brothers a lifeline, even if the bank was nearly broke. The Fed earlier came to the rescue of Bear Stearns, after doing little analysis, and only days later saved the American International Group. The government subsequently saved the likes of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Ultimately, whether Lehman should have gotten Fed support was a judgment call, not a matter of strict statute, these people said.



“We had lawyers joined at our hips,” said one participant. “And they were very helpful at framing the issues. But they never said we couldn’t do it.”

As another participant put it, “It was a policy and political decision, not a legal decision.”

A Wall Street Watershed

The account from the New York Fed officials provides new insight into a dangerous moment in Wall Street history. Countless financial figures — from Wall Street chiefs to government policy makers — have said that allowing Lehman to die the way it did was a misjudgment that inflicted unnecessary pain.

“There is close to universal agreement that the demise of Lehman Brothers was the watershed event of the entire financial crisis and that the decision to allow it to fail was the watershed decision,” Alan S. Blinder, an economics professor at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Fed, wrote in his history of the financial crisis, “After the Music Stopped.”

“The Fed has explained the decision as a legal issue,” Mr. Blinder said in an interview. “But is that true or valid? Is it enough? Those are important questions.”

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“I will maintain to my deathbed that we made every effort to save Lehman, but we were just unable to do so because of a lack of legal authority,” said Ben S. Bernanke, in an interview with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on Nov. 17, 2009.CreditShawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

Whether the Fed should have tried to save Lehman is still a subject of heated debate. And it is unclear whether the firm could have been rescued at all.

What happened that September was the culmination of circumstances reaching back years — of ordinary people too eager to borrow, of banks too eager to lend and of Wall Street financial engineers reaping multimillion-dollar bonuses. Even so, saving Lehman from complete collapse might have shielded the economy from what turned out to be a crippling blow. And as the subsequent rescue of A.I.G., the insurance giant, demonstrated, a rescue could have included substantial protections for taxpayers.

Back in 2008, the Fed possessed broad authority to lend to banks in trouble. Section 13-3 of the Federal Reserve Act provided that “in unusual and exigent circumstances” the Fed could lend to any institution, as long as the loan was “secured to the satisfaction of the Federal Reserve Bank.” In the eyes of the Fed, that means a firm must be solvent and have adequate collateral to lend against, and making that determination was the responsibility of the New York Fed, the regional Fed bank that had begun to assume responsibility for Lehman. On that September weekend, teams from the New York Fed were told to assess Lehman’s solvency and collateral.

Whether and how much the Fed could lend Lehman depended on those teams’ findings, although the final decision rested with Mr. Geithner, Mr. Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Board.

A Question of Valuation

In recent interviews, members of the teams said that Lehman had considerable assets that were liquid and easy to value, like United States Treasury securities. The question was Lehman’s illiquid assets — primarily a real estate portfolio that Lehman had recently valued at $50 billion. By Lehman’s account, the firm had a surplus of assets over liabilities of $28.4 billion.

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“Let me also say, for the record, strongly: There was no authority, there was no law that would have let us save Lehman Brothers,” said Henry M. Paulson Jr., at the House Committee on Financial Services on Nov. 18, 2008. CreditAlex Wong/Getty Images

Others had already taken a stab at valuing Lehman’s troubled assets. Kenneth D. Lewis, then the chief executive of Bank of America — who, with the government’s encouragement, was considering a bid for Lehman — asserted that Lehman had a “$66 billion hole” in its balance sheet.

A group of bankers summoned to the Fed by Mr. Paulson, who was hoping they would mount a private rescue, did not accept Lehman’s $50 billion valuation for its real estate and could not decide whether Lehman was solvent. But potential private rescuers had a motive to lowball Lehman’s value. Fed officials involved in the valuation stressed that the Fed could hold distressed assets for much longer than private parties, allowing time for those assets to recover in value. Also, because the Fed sets monetary policy, it exerts enormous influence over the assets’ ultimate value.

“There can’t be any reasonable doubt that had the Fed rescued Lehman, that very act would have pushed up the value of its assets,” Mr. Blinder said.

While the Fed team did not come up with a precise value for Lehman’s illiquid assets, it provided a range that was far more generous in its valuations than the private sector had been.

“It was close,” a member of the Fed team that evaluated the collateral said. “Folks were aware of how ambiguous these values are, especially at a time of crisis. So it becomes a policy question: Do you want to take a chance or not?”

Argument continues today over the value of Lehman’s assets. A report compiled by Anton R. Valukas, a Chicago lawyer, at the behest of the bankruptcy court overseeing Lehman concluded in 2010 that nearly all of the firm’s real estate valuations were reasonable. It also suggested that Lehman’s chaotic bankruptcy caused many of the losses later borne by the firm’s creditors. Other analysts have argued that Lehman was deeply insolvent.

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“We didn’t believe we had the legal authority to guarantee Lehman’s trading liabilities, even using our ‘unusual and exigent’ powers,” said Timothy F. Geithner, in “Stress Test,” his 2014 book on the financial crisis. CreditKevin Lamarque/ReutersContinue reading the main story


Ultimately, the appraisals of the New York Fed teams did not matter. Their preliminary finding was that Lehman was solvent and that what it faced was essentially a bank run, according to members of the group. Researchers working on the value of Lehman’s collateral said they thought they would be delivering those findings to Mr. Geithner that September weekend.

But Mr. Geithner had already been diverted to A.I.G., which was facing its own crisis. In the end, the team members said, they delivered their findings orally to other New York Fed officials, including Michael F. Silva, Mr. Geithner’s chief of staff.

On Sunday, Mr. Bernanke was in Washington awaiting the New York Fed’s verdict. In a phone call, Mr. Geithner said Lehman could not be saved.

The Fed would be lending into a run, Mr. Geithner told Mr. Bernanke, according to both men’s accounts. In a recent interview, Mr. Bernanke said, “Knowing the potential consequences of Lehman’s failure, I was 100 percent committed to doing whatever could possibly and legally be done to save the company, as were Tim and Hank.” Mr. Paulson has concurred, saying, “Although it was Ben and Tim’s decision to make, I shared their view that Lehman was insolvent, and I know the marketplace did.”

Those at the Fed who have contended that Lehman was insolvent have never provided any basis for that conclusion, other than references to the estimates of Wall Street firms and other anecdotal evidence. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission asked for such evidence several times, but the Fed never provided it. The members of the New York Fed teams said that they did not prepare a formal, written report, and that no one asked them for any notes or work papers or asked them to elaborate on their findings. Scott G. Alvarez, the Fed’s general counsel, told the commission that there was “no time” that weekend for a written analysis.

‘A Lack of Legal Authority’

Phil Angelides, the crisis commission’s chairman, said no one ever mentioned the New York Fed analysis during his hearings. “If in fact the analysis existed and was independent, it would have been in everyone’s interest to have that out, even if it were in the form of notes,” Mr. Angelides said in an interview. He added, “If you look at the record, there is no legal stopper,” meaning a legal barrier.


So why, then, was Lehman allowed to die?

Mr. Paulson has said that politics did not enter into the decision. But he had endured months of criticism for bailing out Bear Stearns in March 2008, and the outcry only intensified after the Treasury provided support to the mortgage finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in the first week of September. During a conference call on the Thursday before Lehman’s collapse, Mr. Paulson declared to Mr. Bernanke, Mr. Geithner and other regulators that he would not use public money to rescue Lehman, saying he did not want to be known as “Mr. Bailout.”

In written testimony before Congress that September, Mr. Bernanke made no mention of any legal constraint. Instead, he said, “We judged that investors and counterparties had had time to take precautionary measures.”

It was only on Oct. 7, after early praise for the decision to let Lehman fail had turned into a wave of criticism, that anyone mentioned the legal argument. In a speech that day, Mr. Bernanke said, “Neither the Treasury nor the Federal Reserve had the authority to commit public money in that way.” Mr. Paulson first mentioned the claim a week later. In an interview, Mr. Bernanke said, “We made a deliberative decision to be very cautious about publicizing our inability to save Lehman out of concern that it would further worsen the market panic.” Mr. Paulson made the same point. Mr. Bernanke was emphatic before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in 2009: “I will maintain to my deathbed that we made every effort to save Lehman, but we were just unable to do so because of a lack of legal authority.”

Mr. Bernanke and others have said that a Fed lifeline to Lehman might not have stopped the run on the firm. But others have said the point of Rule 13-3 was exactly that — to stop such panics.

“Of course the Fed can stop a run,” said Mr. Blinder, the economist. “That’s what it’s all about.”


Scholars are still struggling with the claim that the Fed could not rescue Lehman but was nonetheless able to save Bear Stearns and A.I.G.

What is clear to Mr. Blinder, he says, is that the decision was a formula for panic.

“The inconsistency was the biggest problem,” Mr. Blinder said. “The Lehman decision abruptly and surprisingly tore the perceived rule book into pieces and tossed it out the window.”