Video Of The Week: Banks

With her second full-length album due out in just over a month, Banks (or Jillian Rose Banks, as her birth certificate calls her) seems to have set her sights on a dancier version of dark pop (where Lana Del Rey is more orchestral) - or at least that's what I gather from her latest video, directed by Philippa Price, for the song Gemini Feed:


There's something in the song's sound that I find lacking, but I can't put my finger on it exactly. Perhaps it's the drum programming, or the lack of actual string instruments, but there's a void in the sound that is reminiscent of that of 1980s pop to my ears, the type that makes me nauseous usually - but not in this case, not quite.

I do really like the directing and photography, though; the colours are clear and crisp, the wardrobe design is really nice and makes up for the simplistic set design (and probable lack of budget). And, yes, I did say I liked the clothes she wears in the video, despite not being a fashion enthusiast - at all.

How Iran Deals With Bank Fraud

- See more at: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/18/289652/iran-sentences-4-to-death-in-scam-case/#sthash.vyxaT0JI.dpuf

 

If you're going to be a country barbaric enough to still have the death penalty in you justice system, might as well use it against those whose crimes hurt the most people, and Iran - of all places - has decided to use it on four of the people charged with disrupting the country's economic system through fraud. The others' sentences read from jail time (some up to 10 years) to fines.

Other defendants were handed down sentences varying from flogging to paying cash fines and being barred from public office, he said.

Mohseni-Ejei also stated that almost none of the companies involved in this case were ordered closed by the court.

The defendants stood trial for misappropriating a total of USD2.6 billion of funds by using forged documents to obtain credit from banks to purchase state-owned companies. - See more at: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/18/289652/iran-sentences-4-to-death-in-scam-case/#sthash.vyxaT0JI.dpuf

Other defendants were handed down sentences varying from flogging to paying cash fines and being barred from public office.

The defendants stood trial for misappropriating a total of USD2.6 billion of funds by using forged documents to obtain credit from banks to purchase state-owned companies.

In the U.S., fraudulant bankers are not even prosecuted, and some are almost revered; in Iceland, they are jailed; in Iran, they are treated the same way as anyone else who would attempt to disrupt, corrupt, or destroy the system - as it should be.

I do not condone the death penalty; I am totally against it. The State should not have rights individuals don't have in the treatment of its citizens.

However, fraudulant bankers responsible for robbing the system of billions of dollars should and must be treated the same way as traitors and terrorists because, in a way, that's exactly what they are. Same goes for corrupt politicians.

Iran's system goes against logic on many issues, but this is one case where we could definitely learn from them.

Other defendants were handed down sentences varying from flogging to paying cash fines and being barred from public office, he said.

Mohseni-Ejei also stated that almost none of the companies involved in this case were ordered closed by the court.

The defendants stood trial for misappropriating a total of USD2.6 billion of funds by using forged documents to obtain credit from banks to purchase state-owned companies. - See more at: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/18/289652/iran-sentences-4-to-death-in-scam-case/#sthash.vyxaT0JI.dpuf

Other defendants were handed down sentences varying from flogging to paying cash fines and being barred from public office, he said.

Mohseni-Ejei also stated that almost none of the companies involved in this case were ordered closed by the court.

The defendants stood trial for misappropriating a total of USD2.6 billion of funds by using forged documents to obtain credit from banks to purchase state-owned companies. - See more at: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/18/289652/iran-sentences-4-to-death-in-scam-case/#sthash.vyxaT0JI.dpuf

Other defendants were handed down sentences varying from flogging to paying cash fines and being barred from public office, he said.

Mohseni-Ejei also stated that almost none of the companies involved in this case were ordered closed by the court.

The defendants stood trial for misappropriating a total of USD2.6 billion of funds by using forged documents to obtain credit from banks to purchase state-owned companies. - See more at: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/18/289652/iran-sentences-4-to-death-in-scam-case/#sthash.vyxaT0JI.dpuf

Not My Month

From back pain to frozen bank accounts to being out of work to finding work for a week but having it be useless for the first day to it being the coldest month of the year, it just hasn't been my month.

Just sayin'. There's been no recess.

All Bankers Are Vampires

Bankers. These fuckers lie so much for a living, they make lawyers seem righteous. They walk crooked with their legs forming an ellipse because they are genetically incapable of doing anything that has to do with either definition of the word ''right''. It becomes problematic when they get into their cars, because doing nothing but left turns empowers them, makes them feel like NASCAR drivers, and so they speed in school districts and buy off the cops when the time comes for tickets or prison time.

They only work half days, close shop at 3, because they don't want anybody with a job near a computer or a camera to know what's going on inside their establishments, while they bleed their customers dry and suck out their life force. Literally. And that's the point of this whole thing - they are modern-day vampires, only instead of looking like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, they are decrepit bald men that only come out after sunset. They let the barely younger overweight mothers of five to deal directly with customers as long as they can sustain paying for the bank's front, but as soon as their accounts are dry, they are taken to the back room where they're hung at the ceiling by their heads and their blood sucked from above through metal straws by the bankers on the floor above them.

It is a savage sight to see, and they figured I was too overweight to run away, but they didn't count on my brute force to knock them out one by one and find my way back home to expose their dirty little secret. But it's not really a secret, is it? It's just that the metaphors we used are, in fact, not images but the actual truth of what happens behind the appearances of legitimate business.

Retribution is a word they only understand during tax season. But we're smack-dab right in the middle of it, aren't we? The vultures need to maintain the erection tax season gives them... they need fresh blood. They'll get restless and reckless soon enough.

Money (That's What I Want)

Banks. from their very inception, they were conceived as a means to steal from people. ''Hey, let me watch over your money!'' quickly became ''pay me to watch over your money'', and the interest they charged was way more than the interest they received - and i was all normal, because it's the basis of our capitalist system.

Then capitalism ran amok, and we gave banks the rights to also charge us fees for handling our accounts, because more-than-doubling us on interest on our own money wasn't enough, so now we were happily also giving them $5-20 a month for them to store our cash and give us 0.1% interest, while they lent others our money at a 5-10% rate. ''Financial institutions'' which weren't actually banks, on the other hand, started charging well over 30%.

But that wasn't enough. We also had to let the bastards gamble our money away, which made way for the financial crisis we're currently in.

And it seems that also wasn't enough. On Friday, my bank froze my bank account, not giving me any reason for it. Of course, during the day, it was fine, but as soon as my bank closed, the funds weren't available. And, of course, as banks have a way of fucking things up, it was nearly impossible to get an answer from anyone concerning anything after hours.

Three phone calls got me to a lady who could ''see the account is locked, but there's no other information as to why of what transactions are prevented''. Can I still pay my bills, write checks - pay my creditors, at least? Or will they have to starve just like me? No answer, just a vague ''there is someplace you can call on Saturday where they might have more answers for you.

Come Saturday, and it turns out this number is for an open bank branch - same bank, different branch, so they can't unfreeze the account, but at least their supervisor can tell me it's a ''governmental lockdown''. So, it's narrowed down to three things: provincial taxes, federal taxes, or that dude from Florida who thinks I scammed him started procedures and the cops froze it.

I should know on Monday. I still had to live off of other people's money for the weekend, which really sucks. And without knowing the actual reason why, either - which sucks even more. And the money I borrowed, I used on groceries for myself and the cats - which means I'm late on mailing Ebay DVDs I sold (Galaxy Quest, The Big Lebowski and Lost: Season Two - Season 1 still available if interested).