'The Bus'

This is 'The Bus' in Los Angeles with two passengers -- one a bearded,

unkempt man, lurching forward, and the second, a 'woman', well over six

feet fall (without apparent Adams Apple, and not counting any 'help' from

her 'heels', and with eyebrows double their 'normal size' because of

extra make-up, which all help explain why many Americans shun public

transit. Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you

rate harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment; please share your superior photographic knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

A very beautiful picture

You're just as twisted as I am.

 

I see 'beauty' in this, at least that it depicts 'reality' in a 'true' way - one that many people avert their eyes from.

 

It's the 'truth' however many suburbanites would like to deny it, or just avoid it.

 

Thanks again.

 

John (Crosley)

By the pants (see the faux stitching on the side) of the over six foot tall 'woman' seated on the bus's side.

 

This is an adventure from riding the bus, and one reason why in America in 'spread city' so many are in love with their autos.

 

You can drive somewhere in 20 minutes, but to take the bus, plan on two to three hours.

 

The choice is clear, but in Europe, it's different - even same in New York City or possibly Chicago.

 

It doesn't have to be, but the way a city's built affects its transportation structure and if it's 'spread city' then it's tougher to build for.

 

John (Crosley)

Talking about reality, I liked the sign "National Bank" at the center of this particular scene.

I hadn't noticed that! Step to the head of the 'interpret Crosley's photo' class.

 

I was up overnight editing photos, and for the first time in two weeks had television on.

 

I listened as one financial reporter/analyst quoted as a lesson, a recent Federal Reserve Bank study that showed if you let your bank honor an overdraft and charge you a fee of, say, $20,(a trap by the way, as it doesn't really cost them but a few pennies), then pay the overdraft a week later, you are being charged well over 3,000 per cent Annual Percentage Rate interest.

 

It's enough to make Shylock cringe (or maybe rub his hands in delight)?

 

The banks have all sorts of traps, like this one: You set up an account, and you are supposed to have a transfer from one account to the other of $75 each month (checking to savings), and if the money is not enough in checking, they 'overdraft' it, and charge a $35 fee, then start bouncing all your other checks.

 

Then they pay them against 'overdraft protection' which you may not even know you have and may think you are grateful to have: Think again.

 

They order the order of check presentment and other transactions to drain your account by paying the biggest first paid first in hopes of overdrawing you, then paying all the little ones in 'overdraft, so each and every one gets a $35 charge as an overdraft fee, even those $2 and $4 charges you had enough to pay originally.

 

So if on the 30th of the month you had $74 in your checking account and had written a $60 check and it hit on the first, the $74 would not have been enough to transfer to savings = $35 overdraft fee.

 

Now you are minus $35 = $75 - $35 = $45. The $60 check bounces, and it costs you another $35 and if you had a $2 a $3 and $4 checks outstanding presented for payment, (the total is $9, your bank would arrange the order of presentation on the day they all arrive (including the $60 check, so the first check incurs the overdraft, drains your account, then each of the next three checks (which you had enough money to cover), incurs a $35 charge for a total of an additional $105.

 

Total for the exercise, for jiggering their rules and order of presentation of checks to incur maximum overdraft, is $140. Soon your bank will refuse overdraft because its policies send your account so far into negative, that your checks to merchants will be returned, and merchants will charge you $35 or $50 or so AND turn off your services (or call the sheriff).

 

There's a reason people ride the bus; and sometimes a reason richer people who get a little 'down' in their bank balances, suddenly find themselves faced with massive overdraft charges and interest that approaches 3,000 per cent Annual Percentage Rate. (Federal Reserve Calculation, based on example given at top, not mine).

 

That's Capitalism Run Wild -- 'All for ME, and none for you',and to hell with what happens to you. You gotta watch out for yourself, and no longer can trust a banker.

 

GOTCHA CAPITALISM, which affects these people the worst, I think if they venture to have a bank account.

 

Banks fight like heck to make welfare payable through bank accounts so they get a stab at charging those outrageous service charges, even if they charge nothing for a withdrawal or two, as a 'public service' for a measly food stamp or welfare payment of $200 a month (when rent alone can be $500 for a modest room).

 

California has a slightly different system, thank God.

 

But the banks will try to find a way - even to drain welfare accounts with their $35 overdraft charges. (and I am aware of some ostensible 'reforms' from some banks, but they're minimal and mostly 'window dressing' so far).

 

Pardon the comment, Celunt, but it's true and it's emblematic of our society and how we take care of our citizens, let alone our unfortunates who get horrible care -- there are NO welfare queens since 1996 Welfare Reform, unless they're out and out crooks (and fingerprints will catch up with double collectors)

 

Thanks for your sharp eye, Bulent.

 

It helped trigger what needed to be written (here in America at least).

 

(Once we could trust our banks and bankers, but no longer).

 

John (Crosley)

Well John.... Bank diatribe withstanding :-), what i find intriguing is the body language here. Too Tall is relaxed, seemingly bored in a pretentious way, while Lurch, in spite of his slump, is tense and holding on to his seat. Now, that's easy to spot, but then I got to Lurches eyes... they are fixated on the grocery bag. I think Lurch is weighing the possibility of a free snack, but just can't figure out how to get it. Too Tall may even be sensing this through the boredom and thus the relaxed, but protective hand on the cart. Who knows? But an entire act in this lifetime play in just one frame.

 

A marvelous slice of life you've captured here.... Mike

 

 

The question is emerging for me: With which of those persons would you prefer to be stuck in a lift (elevator)? Excellent social study John. The man with beard looks like he would like to run away but invisible power is keeping him on the chair...seriously, I think his back is not so well..Best regards, vf

I've been told and told and told again, that most of my photos 'tell stories', so I have to look at them again when someone says 'here's a story I see in your photo.'

 

And your story does indeed 'flesh out' this interesting (but cropped) photo.

 

*I cropped it because (a) I like tighter cropping and (b) because when it was on my screen resizing to a 24-inch copy for saving in that size the screen cropped mainly the faces, etc.,and I liked that version very much. You can use your hands/fingers to crop tighter and see, but that 'strong' version does not capture the 'scene' so I did not post it,but may crop it tighter still. Crosley crops are relatively rare.

 

As to 'the story' you tell, it is entirely plausible, except that 'too tall' was quite officious or at least a little hostile (to everyone) and 'Mr. Lurch' was pretty helpless so getting groceries would have been an impossible exercise as 'too tall also appeared very fit and strong (and very very tall).

 

(And again, no Adams Apple for the worth of that - if genetically female absolutely the second largest female I've ever seen - after sitting near the female center of the Soviet Women's Basketball team in 1966 who was about a mile high, but not so muscular as this individual.

 

Thanks for an appealing critique that opened my eyes. A Crosley story? I'm reconsidering now, as I thought the story was far smaller, but well, it just may be so.

 

John (Crosley)

It is said the mark of a successful photo (that is not absolutely awful) is that it causes the viewer to 'engage' and to wander through the photo, ,examining it and questioning it or otherwise study it.

 

And that you have done, questioning eventually whether the bearded man has a 'bad back etc.

 

He may very well have, and with the state of medical care for indigent, it's likely to go untreated, too, and if it keeps him from a job, you may have solved the puzzle of why he's like he is . . . . seemingly impoverished, though there may be a dozen interacting other reasons.

 

And why am I there on the bus?

 

To go to the camera store,

 

To take a photo, eventually of Ray (next posting).

 

And wife (ux) (Ileana), and to 'capture life' not just what I can see from my auto.

 

To engage and photograph 'the people' you gotta go where they go.

 

(Oh, the man is in the handicapped/elderly seats, though some who are not either sit in those seats too, and he is NOT about to arise, though he appears so.)

 

Thanks Vladimir, for a fine critique.

 

(this photo seems to attract them, and I hope that's a sign of engagement and some success - a somewhat different photo than many of mine, even its point of view -- unfocused with wide angle, knee level, taken 'blindly' then cropped. I would like to crop this one more, but that would be a different photo. (Love 12 megapixel cameras).

 

John (Crosley)

I had no idea about your banking system and I am a bit surprised.

Now I see our banks under a better light :)

I would love to listen to someone (I mean, a human being) talking about the merits of the system you described. It sure sounds like rape and feels like rape and hearing some reasons to show that it still serves the happiness of the society would be fun, if nothing else!

Bankers will say that they provide a repository for capital as well as a place to allocate capital by lending.

 

They also have turned into huge profit machines, those at least that did not put all their money into sub prime lending - in effect, lending without thinking.

 

I could see it coming back two or three years ago. I had a house (heavily loaned) which rose to astounding values, and I had borrowed heavily against it because of ill health and disability insurances which never paid me.

 

But the market kept rising, and I could understand a 'bubble' - having known about tulip bulbs in Holland and other such phenomena, and then I heard about 'liar loans' in which one 'stated' a so-called 'income' whether true or not and no one cared and those loans were driving prices higher and higher, but they were not sound and I KNEW there would be a crisis, and sold anxiously and knowingly, afraid of what was going to happen to the real estate market (not the entire economy,not knowing the extent of securitization of the horrible loans that had taken place, to far off places hungry for investments, that 'seemed' stable).

 

Lenders such as 'banks' and mortgage lenders only cared if the loans were backed by salary numbers that were 'theoretically possible'.

 

I know a man who is a carpenter who builds movie sets who when fully employed makes over $200,000 a year, easily.

 

So, a carpenter who put down an annual income of $200,000 would be compared to this movie set carpenter's salary, his documentation never would have been required and at the height of the bubble of lending (by banks and mortgage lenders) he would have been 'approved' without 'proof of salary' though the mortgage lenders and banks were approving loans that were 'time bomb' because no one could afford the sky high payments and interest.

 

The banks and brokers justified it all by saying 'look historically even for sub prime loans there was past low loan default rate, and house prices were rising, so if there was default, owners (or lenders) could sell at a profit.

 

Two faults with that. There was no valid data on 'liar loans defaulting' and not all housing prices could go up fast forever, though they had gone up and up and up for a very long time, so it seemed they might go up indefinitely.

 

People make lots of money in rising markets during bubbles and only those 'holding' when the bubble bursts get hurt the most.

 

I sold at near the top, but had little left, unfortunately because of my insurer and put most of that into cameras, and after a while, most were stolen (and my insurance took their own sweet time about paying the loss, illegally I figure.)

 

America has many things wrong with it.

 

The greatness of America is not that Americans do not make mistakes; we make then in plenitude.

 

Our greatness is that often we recognize our mistakes then we FIX them.

 

That is why Obama is President, why I write such things and I can write such things because we have a Constitution and a working Republic (not Democracy) and one in which people do think and vote -- remember, Bush won by a handful of votes, so votes DO count, even those Bush (or Kennedy) stole (even if stupidly some times or even often.)

 

Remember, Americans are pretty good at fixing broken things, which truly is the key to this country's greatness.

 

I can say nothing about banking in your country, as I do not know what it is.

 

Our banking system is not completely broken, but it is working badly for the consumer, but we have a Congress and the people are very angry.

 

Competition may help break bad habits, and if not, Congress driven by angry voters probably will.

 

Or there will be new forms of 'banking' develop.

 

Wait and see.

 

It won't be perfect, and maybe even corrupted in the process, but something better will come along.

 

My comment above is part of that process, and if there were no hope why bother?

 

I'm glad you remarked, so I can make this statement to you (and other readers). Above is not just a 'rant' but a sober reflection . .. . of something endemically wrong that needs fixing . . . . otherwise banks can do very well here but recently have failed us Americans and many in other countries as well (e.g. Credit Suisse, etc, Icelandic banks failure, Ukrainian banks failures,and so on.).

 

We had a law a while ago that would have kept regulating much bank behavior that helped put us into this mess, but it was repealed under the Clinton Administration (largely driven by Republicans), and that was a HUGE mistake. (Glass Steagall Act).

 

That's part of the reason behind today's problems.

 

Another was 'securitization of debt' and the huge world appetite for 'investments' and concurrent dearth of 'good investments' in face of huge demand, coupled by failure of debt rating agencies to do their jobs properly.

 

(That's it in a nutshell - the whole present day world economic situation summarized).

 

How'd I do?

 

I don't just take photos.

 

Or wasn't just confined to practicing law a very long time ago.

 

I liked the movie 'A Man For All Seasons'.

 

Can you guess why?

 

;~))

 

john

 

John (Crosley)