Teen court

Now every Tuesday I will blog about what i learned at teen court. Teen court is a place where tens decide the punishment for other teens crimes. All the people there have already admitted they are guilty and we just decide how severe to punish them.

Egyptian Protests

Currently in Egypt, citizens are protesting because they want the president to step down. He has agreed to have another election in September, but citizens are still not happy. Egypt is blocking media and beating anyone with a camera. They beat a CNN reporter, and CNN has resigned not to go back to Egypt. The U.S. has not yet stepped in because we are supposed to be on the side of the people, but we give Egypt 1.3 billion dollars a year in financial aid. Baisically we do not want to lose an ally.

Lawboy-

If We Didn’t

What if we didn’t have the Bill of Rights or any amendments to our country’s constitution? Do you think we would be the same county or not? First, if we could not legally bear arms, there would be tons more illegal weapons, creating an unsafe environment. Citizens would fear authorities because they could be searched at any time and African-Americans would still not be accepted as full citizens. Women wouldn’t be able to vote, and poor men might not be able to either. With all of these problems, we would probably go back to our old form of government. Bottom-line, without the amendments and a process to change the constitution, we probably would have kings and a monarchy again.

Lawboy-

Will You Have a Will?

Wills make many problems. But, it is not the wills themselves; it is more the lack of wills. A will or testament is a legal declaration that is opened upon a person’s death and gives instructions on how to settle their estate. In other words, it tells who gets their belongings: it is usually their children, spouse, and sometimes charities or colleges. It also states in some cases who is to take care of their children, if they are not there to. If people don’t state any one of the above clearly in their wills in most cases will be arguments, big arguments, regardless of the amount of money involved. The gift of money or clarity of intent is replaced by competition among piranha for the carcass of a water buffalo. Maybe there should be a requirement to have a will at a certain age or with a certain amount of wealth. For example, if you renew driver’s license at age 40 or more you have to have a will.

Lawboy-

It's My Jersey and I’ll Sell It If I Want To

Occasionally, sports players will sell their trophies or jerseys. The question is: is it legal? If a jersey must be returned to the team at the end of the sport’s year, clearly it is not legal to sell it. I agree with this law. But, what if the item sold was an award or trophy? The way I understand it, this is legal, but against the unwritten rules of the game. A football player, Terrelle Pryor, and others from Ohio State, sold some of his jerseys and awards and was suspended for five games. I agree that it was wrong of him to sell, but he probably needed the money. Also, I think that if it is wrong for the seller, it is also wrong for the buyer, but they cannot punish the buyer because most likely he is not a sports player.

Lawboy-

To Cap Or Not To Cap

Transaction fees are a minimal price to pay for the convenient use of credit cards, although the government is now saying that these fees are too high and should be capped. The government thinks they should set these caps/limits to about 12 cents per transaction. But, credit card companies like VISA, MasterCard, and American Express want to be able to choose fees. They charge, say, 3 percent of each transaction. I believe there should not be a cap on credit card fees, but the government should reserve the right to put one on in case one company gets a monopoly or companies collude to made fees go up very high.

Lawboy-

Inflation, Lies and the Inevitable Bankruptcy

The currency of the U.S. that the government prints used to be backed by gold and silver. The U.S. left the gold standard in 1933 when President Roosevelt was in office. The government saw that others countries that were not our allies had most of the gold, this was a threat. Also, the U.S. wanted to spend more money than it had in gold or silver. Going off the gold standard seemed like an easy solution to prevent running out of gold reserves, so the U.S. left the gold standard. Since then, there has been a lot of inflation. Year after year, the government just keeps printing money. It seems it prints as much money as it can. This is bad for citizens that try to save money because their savings is worth less and less every year. If the government keeps spending money like this, it will eventually result in bankruptcy for the country. Then everybody’s money is worth nothing.

But now we can’t go back to the gold standard. There isn’t enough gold and silver. The solution is for the government to not print so much money. Everybody has to pay for the things they want or need with money that they have worked for.

Lawboy-

Bail Outs

The US government gave the banks (e.g. Bank of America), insurance companies (e.g. AIG), and car companies (GM, Chrysler, and GMAC) billions and billions dollars to get them out of the tight financial spot they were in. The US government gave a bail out to the banks for them to loan money to small businesses and home owners, but instead the banks loaned the bail out money back to the government with about 4% interest profit. This worked for the banks, but not really anybody else. The US government gave a bail out to the insurance companies so that they wouldn’t go out of business and other businesses could continue to operate with insurance, this worked. The US government gave a bail out to the big US car companies for the same reason as the insurance companies, this worked too but in my opinion it was pointless. The Japanese, Korean, and German car companies could have sold cars just as well as GM and Chrysler. So, I think the government is 2-1 in bail outs which is a not bad soccer score.

Lawboy-

Who owns it?

When you come up with an idea it’s “yours.” But, if somebody else comes up with instructions on how to do it, could they then patent or copyright the instructions?

I believe that if the original person that came up with it doesn’t patent it, and doesn’t write it down in a way that can be copied by an average person, then the follow-on instructions doesn’t belong to them. Why, because you need instructions to know how and if it works. For example, a lot of kids come up with ideas like a robot that cleaned their room. But, it’s not “theirs” if they don’t put together the prototype and instructions to do it!

Lawboy-

Leaking Academic Records

There was a football player, Cam Newton, which might win the Heisman trophy. But, some organization or some group at his previous college (University of Florida) thought that he shouldn’t get it; regardless of his play on the football field. So they leaked his academic records that may or may not have negative information in them. The allegation is he had cheated on a test. Now he may not get the Heisman trophy because of this invasion of privacy. It wasn’t legal for them to leak his records.

I think he shouldn’t be punished (not allowed to win the Heisman trophy) for something that happened off of the field. And if he files a lawsuit against his previous university, how much the Heisman trophy is worth?

Lawboy-

Accepting money to play

Cam Newton and his dad are being accused (without any evidence) of accepting money from Auburn University or boosters to go there. I think this is 100% OK, either way! It is kind of like if you pay for a great coach like Nick Saban or Bear Bryant on a football team, or a great teacher like Richard Feynman at a school like Harvard or CalTech.

Let’s see, the universities get paid, the coaches get paid, the NCAA gets paid, the commentators get paid, the networks get paid, and even the parking attendants at football games get paid. But, not the players? What kind of candy land world has everybody get money, but the players? I know the players get an education. But, do they? Their scholarships are year by year. They can be kicked out, forced out, or be in other ways made to give up their scholarships. I bet the NCAA reps don’t give their salary back for any reason. But, the players get funny money in the form of tuition and registration fees and everybody else gets real money. Sounds like a situation those getting real money like, even if the real players often get stuck in the molasses swamp.

Lawboy-

Should Halloween be legal?

There may be some legal issues with Halloween. For one, strangers giving kids candy! The first thing you learn in guidance when you’re in kindergarten is never take candy from strangers or walk their dogs. Also, Halloween may be the day when criminal activities take place, and it doesn’t help that you can’t see anyone’s face. Even if someone had a ski mask, machete and gloves you may take it for a costume or it could be a costume but someone thinks it’s real. Halloween was made a nationally recognized holiday and is observed on October 31st.

Lawboy-

Everything always starts small, micro-lending to

Face it, big money centers are broken. They don’t really lend money anymore; they fee and fine customers into financially unviable positions. I strongly believe in micro-lending. Micro-lending is when people donate (or lend) money to someone to help them start a small business. If the business takes off the person who made the profit gives back money to the lender. Micro-lending is mostly in Africa or third-world counties, but we could use it here in the USA. The Kiva organization and VISA are giving it try, but I wouldn’t trust VISA with much, not even a goat in Rwanda.

Lawboy-

A Book or a Buck?

My school has about 90 students in band. There are lots of things to keep track of: your instrument, your music book, and sheet music. Also, there are extras like cork grease, cleaning cloth, tuner, and metronome. Further, there are time constraints in putting away your instrument in your locker and all your other stuff too to get ready for the next class. Well, all this hustle and bustle is the perfect recipe for leaving stuff behind. This creates both a problem and an opportunity for our band teacher. It is a problem because the band shares the room with another group and has to be cleared out quickly. The opportunity is a big money maker. He fines us for leaving our stuff behind. Big fines too! To be fair, he doesn’t keep the money. It is donated to the school’s music association.

One day I left my music book and sheet music behind, but I couldn’t find it when I went back to the band room to look. Then, my mom went and bought me another music book. About a week went past and I had forgotten about the misplaced music book when my band teacher came up to me and said, “I have your music book, it will be nine dollars to get it back.” Nine dollars! These are big fines. I told him he could keep it, because I had already replaced it. Then, he asked if I had the sheet music too. Here I bluffed. I said I did, when I only intended to copy it from a friend. This left the band teacher in a little bit of a situation. What is he going to do with a used music book that has my name all over it? I didn’t know, and I think he didn’t either. He then dropped the price to $1 and I said OK. I might lose my music book again, so an extra copy is not a bad thing. Even though I question this fining tactic of making “forgetful and clumsy” seventh graders indirectly raise money for band activities, this was a win-win. I got my music book back and my band teacher got a buck for band activities.

Lawboy-

California Pizza

I was staying over at my grandma’s house, and we wanted to go out for dinner. I had just heard about this great deal on pizza at Pizza Hut: a big Italian pizza as big as two small pizzas for $12.99. My cousin knew the way to Pizza Hut, but apparently he misheard me and led us to Round Table. Round Table is a fine pizza place, but it wasn’t having a great deal. We decided that we would order pizza from the Round Table. Our planned great deal on pizza turned out to be regular pizza price. In most places we would not have just given up and ordered at a non-preferred place, but with San Francisco hard parking, tough neighborhoods, and difficult traffic conditions, we considered ourselves lucky to have found a pizza place and just bought the pizza as regular price.

Lawboy-

Street performers

Street performers are big in San Francisco, California. In tourist areas, there are interesting street performers everywhere. I saw one who was a keyboarder who sounded like he could play at Carnegie Hall and another who was dressed in gold and had gold on his face too, I call him the gold man who could dance like a robot. To be a good street performer, all you have to have is an idea. But, I think that they like and are good at their jobs. However, I doubt they make as much money as working full-time at McDonalds. But if playing the keyboard or dancing like a gold robot is your passion, it is good to be able to do that and pay the rent.

Lawboy-

Crabs Don’t do Valet

The parking in San Francisco California was very different! This is true for visitors. I am sure residents have difficulty with parking too. Everywhere you go, you have to pay for parking. I think my family spent about $150 on airport, hotel, and lot parking in less than a week; and that is with parking no tickets. When you go to San Francisco attractions, it’s either parking meters or lot parking, and lot parking is very expensive. On one visit to Fisherman’s wharf, a sign said that restaurants validated parking for three hours. What the sign didn’t mention clearly was that crab shacks don’t count as restaurants and they only validate for one hour! This little technicality or mistake added $20 to our Fisherman’s wharf visit. But, we did enjoy our calamari. It was really good!

Lawboy-

San Francisco California composting: Where do I put this?

Composting is the recycled use of organic matter such as food waste and low quality paper products. The decomposition of compost is performed by micro-organisms like bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. I noticed that in San Francisco everyone must use composting. I think that it is paid for directly by residents or maybe it is included in their taxes. But if you don’t compost and recycle correctly, you are fined; big time!

Composting is a way to keep San Francisco California cleaner, land-fills less full, and meet the city’s target of 90 percent recycling of all products. This is good thing long-term because it probably attracts more tourists to the city since it’s clean. Yet, I do not think that it is in the citizens’ short-term interest to use composting, but it is defiantly a win-win in the long term.

Lawboy-
P.s.

This is the logo:

Heisman Statue of Limitations

I am writing this post even though super bowl ring wearing Reggie Bush could probably care less. Five years ago Reggie Bush accepted money or gifts from a sports agent. This was against the rules of NCAA football, but not against the law. Now he is one of the best running backs out of all the NFL players. The Heisman committee after years of inaction wants to take this on-the-field won award away from him, because he accepted money from an agent. I don’t think they should be able to take it away from him unless he broke a law which he didn’t.
Lawboy-

The Money is in the Middle

The government loans money to banks at zero percent interest. Then, banks loan small businesses money at five percent. I think that the government should loan to small businesses at 0% and banks at 5% or maybe both at 5%.
But, no way is it currently done fairly. Banks do not help the economy! They pull exorbitant and hidden fees right out of the economy through the pockets of working Americans and small businesses; small businesses that create and give people jobs. I think there is a cycle here:
Government loans banks money at 0% =>
Bank loans money to consumers and small businesses at rates from 5% to 25% =>
Consumers and small businesses buy things: houses, cars, office equipment, computers, etc. =>
Consumers and small businesses put their extra money in the savings accounts and savings bonds getting about 1% to 5% interest.

Lawboy-