cranes corner 5-14-13

Barack Obama rode into Washington promising the American people, his would be the most transparent administration to date. It isn't working out that way. Recently, you have to wonder if the incumbent is being haunted by the ghost of Richard Nixon--if some sort of paranormal paranoia is floating around the Oval Office. Now, we don't know what the President knew or didn't know about Bengazi, about the IRS targeting conservative groups like The Tea Party, or about The Justice Department strong arming one of the nations largest News Organizations, The Associated Press--to chase down the source of a big story, but as a democratic predecessor named Harry Truman famously noted "The Buck stops here"..meaning the President is ultimately responsible for what happens on his watch.

Transparency. The President has refused to unseal his college grade transcripts. Curious isn't it? Whether Mr. Obama got straight A's or 4 years of D's...it doesn't matter---he's the President now and no one is judging him on  how he handled Political Science or English lit at Columbia...so why, the secrecy?

He didn't release his birth certificate, until the curious and the conspiracy minded more or less pressured the White House into producing some documentation.

The grades and the birth certificate may be viewed as trivial by some, but taken together the refusal to produce the former and the delay in releasing the latter suggests a man who has something to hide...or just a pervasive sense of arrogance.

The Bengazi story...has changed repeatedly and no matter how the President tries to spin it, the administration didn't protect the Ambassador and his staff..and in the opinion of many has been covering the real story up....Washington fact checkers say as recently as yesterday, when he recalled what he said to reporters the day after the September 11th attack, there is a clear gap between the words the President chose then and the words he thinks he used.

The White House claims it had no knowledge of the IRS bullying conservative groups or the Justice Department demanding personal and business phone records from AP reporters---reporters who broke a story about the CIA's apparent successful break up of a plot to blow up a jetliner in the middle east---a story the administration found embarrassing as it had been telling the public it had no credible information of any terrorists activity..on what would prove to be the first anniversary of Obama Bin Laden's killing. Is it just a coincedence that the two most feared weapons in the governments arsenal--the IRS and The Justice Department...with the power to fleece and arrest us are being employed against perceived enemies of the administration or in the case of the AP---a news organization that may have embarrassed the administration?


Conservatives in The Tea Party. Journalists at the AP---both exercising one of our nations most precious rights...free speech. Rights that to some degree the current administration attempted to violate. One controversy---is unfortunate. Two could be a coincidence--three is a pattern...prompting a familiar and troubling question in Washington. What did the President know and when did he know it.?

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Somewhere around the turn of the century, when the 19th gave way to the 20th, I suppose the people who made buggy whips and carriage wheels and stage coach spare parts, might have been a little concerned about what the Mercedes Benz and Ford Motor Company people were up to. Not many years later the debut of the auto in Europe and the U.S. changed the transportation game and quickly put those long running but suddenly no longer viable industries out of business. Today, you have to wonder of the television world as we once knew it: the networks might be going the same way. Once upon a time when TV consisted of 3 networks and a couple of independent stations, a hit show like I Love Lucy could bring in 50 million viewers. Now, outside of exceptions like the Super Bowl, the networks consider it a real plumb to draw 5 million Americans and the networks are losing the most coveted audience - 18-49 year-old viewers - in droves. Goldman Sachs reports over the winter that demo fell by 17 percent. ABC has seen ratings fall by 40 percent. NBC - now owned by Comcast - lost 40 million dollars during that quarter. Ironically because the cable programs carried by Comcast and other providers are eroding, the over the air TV audience…and worse for the networks. Even those who are watching are doing so on their own time: recording shows on their DVR then playing them back when it’s convenient often skipping through the commercials, giving advertisers a double dip of heartburn. Fewer viewers, and no confirmation that those who do watch a given show watch the commercials. It's not a matter of the networks’ failing to deliver good programming - although that’s a matter of personal opinion - it's just that viewers have many different options for video entertainment: cable, satellite, and internet. Some are downloading programs on their tablets or smart phones, others pretty much tuning out TV in favor of movies that are also downloaded.

Bad as things may seem now for the network suits - who this week will announce the programming line-up for the coming season - in a few years, things may get much worse. Technology is really becoming a game changer. Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant has announced a breakthrough in the mobile technology delivery arena: a fifth generation or 5G. Samsung says it has found a means of transmitting large amounts of data through a new spectrum that surpasses the current state of the art 4G to which much of the mobile industry is still trying to adapt. Samsung says it will have 5G operating smoothly in about 5 or 6 years promising those interested will be able to send unlimited size files, like an entire movie or an evening’s prime time to their mobile device in seconds. So get ready for larger mobile devices and smaller network profits, and you might as well factor in more money for technology spending each year because as amazing as today's devices may seem, tomorrow they'll be obsolete; about as relevant as a black and white TV with rabbit ears.

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It was a big deal back in the 70's when we were all programmed to get to the bank before 3, or have a nice relationship with the local grocer, to cash a check late in the day or on weekends. They came out with this machine - which amazingly would distribute cash at the push of a button. They called it the automatic teller machine or ATM. Pretty sophisticated though to get our cash and there was a limit of just a few hundred dollars per day. We had to put in a secret code - a personal identification number or pin. But if you had the number and the bank confirmed there was money in your account, out came those 20 dollar bills. Only a couple of banks had these wonders at first. Then they became ubiquitous; showing up in grocery stores, liquor stores, gas stations, and transit terminals. And soon everybody had an ATM card. And even if they didn't have a bank account, the government would furnish the next best thing: a card allowing the withdrawal of welfare or jobless benefits. We were, many speculated, on our way to becoming a cashless society. Because even though we could grab some 20's at the machine, the cards would soon be used for every day transactions like credit cards. Why carry cash when you could be robbed?

Well maybe we have come full circle with word that a gang of really smart and really stupid thieves ripped off a couple of banks to the tune of 45 million dollars. In a matter of hours, hackers got the skinny on prepaid debit card accounts, changed the withdrawal limit codes, and scurried around the world stealing money from ATMs - 45 million in a matter of hours. One investigator figures if you took the 45 million in dispensed bills the stack would stretch about 43 feet high. About the only good news is that the dough never came out of any personal or business bank account. The money was just in the bank’s account. And to some extent, the banks may be insured. None of the banks that were hit were American owned or affiliated. And while the ATMs were hit from Russia and Japan to Canada and Europe, the thieves capitalized on the knowledge that banks chartered in the middle east - Oman and the United Arab Emirates were a few steps behind the rest of the financial world in terms of technology and security. Some of the crooks who took the cash have been caught. After mugging for security cameras the ringleader has reportedly been killed.