Big Fucking Oil Mess

Obama fails again. Hot on the heels of utterly tanking healthcare and financial reforms, we see Obama fail yet again on the closely related issues of energy and environmental protection. Reform? I'd be happy to see even real incremental change instead of the ongoing plutocracy cock-sucking.

Always remember that Obama was so busy achieving nothing at all that he also failed to aggressively push a more environmentally friendly agenda as a matter of public policy. The fucker actually argued for more offshore drilling! That's right, the oil industry's fluff boy is Obama.

Head slap.

Here's some David Sirota for you:

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http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-sirota.html

We know that before the disaster, President Obama recklessly pushed to expand offshore drilling. We also know that his Interior Department gave British Petroleum's rig a "categorical exclusion" from environmental scrutiny and, according to The New York Times, "gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf without first getting required (environmental) permits." Worse, we know that after the spill, the same Interior Department kept issuing "categorical exclusions" for new Gulf oil operations, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar still refuses "to rule out continued use of categorical exclusions," as the Denver Post reported (heckuva job, Kenny!).

Undoubtedly, had this been the behavior of a Republican administration, "The Left's" big environmental organizations would be scheduling D.C. protests and calling for firings, if not criminal charges. Yet, somehow, there are no protests. Somehow, there have been almost no calls for the resignation of Salazar, who oversaw this disaster and who, before that, took $323,000 in campaign contributions from energy interests and backed more offshore drilling as a U.S. senator. Somehow, facing environmental apocalypse, there has been mostly silence from "The Left."

Be Clear: The Buck Stops at the Desk of the White House "House Negro"

There is no "news," only opinions about possible facts. So I don't know much, but I still have my own opinions loosely based on what I think the facts may be. If you read enough the facts bubble up to the top, just like the blood from meat when you are making a tasty stock before skimming off the scum. And scum is absolutely the right word for these facts...

I quote myself from May 31, 2009 - Obama's been prez for about 4 months, and you should read the whole post but here's a small bit from it anyway:

......

http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-single-payer-universal-healthcare.html

Obama hasn't floated a plan of his own and despite his previous support for a single-payer plan he has refused to allow any such plan to be discussed at recent healthcare reform negotiations. His claimed deadline may reflect the political realities of congressional elections in 2010, but it is also defeatist and melodramatic. Where was the forewarning on this? Now everyone is supposed to immediately jump in support of whatever Obama decides his plan will be even though he has refused to state just what in the hell it is? And the single-payer option is off the table? And it's now or never? By 1 August 2009?

He doesn't seem very hopeful, does he?

Obama is carefully orchestrating all of the reasons why any healthcare reform will prove impossible. And despite whatever Obama or any other Democrat may say of it in the future - they are intentionally dropping the ball on this reform issue because they lack both the leadership and the courage to do the right thing. Cowards all!

Let me float some ideas of my own with you...

Access to healthcare when you need it is a right and not a privilege. No one should be bankrupted by the vagaries of fate or accidental misfortunes concerning their health.

There is no reason to include the health insurance industry in any negotiations about healthcare reform. Why not? Because the health insurance industry is the problem and the source of waste that needs to be corrected.

Any plan that mandates that citizens must buy insurance from private insurers is a giveaway just like mandatory auto liability insurance. And the waste and enormous expense of healthcare will continue to escalate under such a reworked version of the status quo.

Our political representatives aren't going to do what's right because they fear the health insurance industry more than they fear you, the electorate. You are going to have to make them fear your displeasure more instead.

......

Then back in August I decided that this was all just distracting theater that would amount to nothing:

......

http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/08/glenn-greenwald-great-minds-think-alike.html

Given Obama's lackluster negotiating style it's hard to imagine any other result was intended. Obama has broken promises. He has given away the store for 2% with big pharma behind closed doors. Neither single-payer nor the "public option" was ever given serious play. It all seems so obvious now.

Greenwald goes on to say some "pie in the sky" shit as if things might still turn out alright, but you'll have to forgive me if I remain a cynical realist. The plan was to fail. If we pull success from defeat, I will NOT be crediting Obama for it. If success occurs it will be because torches and pitchforks were the next logical negotiating tactic.

It remains the assertion of this blog that the threat of violence is a transformative force and that's what Jefferson really intended by it all along. The fucker lived to the ripe age of 83, and that's obviously not because he was constantly spoiling for a fight. However, he did stand ready to take certain things all the way if he absolutely had to. There is a difference...

Cynic that I am, I observe that this protracted health care reform "dog and pony show" has also served the function of distracting all and sundry from the perhaps just as meaningful fleecing of the American Taxpayer when it comes to the bank bailouts - without meaningful oversight and a now broke FDIC - and the utter lack of Wall Street reform. The economic bubble just might get reinflated and all of these problems passed off to the next biggest fool after Obama.

Fantasy Sequence...

Interviewer to Obama: "Mr. President, what are your greatest accomplishments since you took office?

Prez Obama: "Well, first of all...wait, look over there!!!"

......

And that makes Obama a "House Negro" in my book, just like Brother Malcolm used to tell it:

http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/08/malcolm-x-house-negro-and-field-negro.html



......

I'm a field negro too.

And as a person of color myself, I don't feel like I have to excuse my use of terms like "negro." This blog is about social justice for all human beings. I have no qualms pointing out social injustices when I identify them nor naming our various tormentors for what they are. Some are the 1% themselves (who mainly sit at home and do nothing), and some are their helpers (who do all the work for their masters).

Be clear: Obama is a helper, even though he's supposed to be our man. But Obama's many campaign promises are turning out to have been empty rhetoric now entirely unsupported by the necessary follow-through actions.

So why tell you this shit again today? Well, there are more people that would appear to agree with me and the facts are starting to form a scum at the top of the human stew we have made of ourselves politically. And the "lefty" Democrats themselves are starting to get pissed off Obama too because Obama expects them to carry his water for him and maybe even commit political suicide too.

Digby says:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-we-can-do-by-digby-jim-vandehei.html

And Obama can say that you're getting a lot, but also saying that it "covers everyone," as if there's a big new benefit is a big stretch. Nothing will have changed on that count except changing the law to force people to buy private insurance if they don't get it from their employer. I guess you can call that progressive, but that doesn't make it so. In fact, mandating that all people pay money to a private interest isn't even conservative, free market or otherwise. It's some kind of weird corporatism that's very hard to square with the common good philosophy that Democrats supposedly espouse.

Nobody's "getting covered" here. After all, people are already "free" to buy private insurance and one must assume they have reasons for not doing it already. Whether those reasons are good or bad won't make a difference when they are suddenly forced to write big checks to Aetna or Blue Cross that they previously had decided they couldn't or didn't want to write. Indeed, it actually looks like the worst caricature of liberals: taking people's money against their will, saying it's for their own good.

And Greenwald has this stuff:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/16/white_house/index.html

The administration is getting the bill which they, more or less, wanted from the start -- the one that is a huge boon to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. And kudos to Russ Feingold for saying so:

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), among the most vocal supporters of the public option, said it would be unfair to blame Lieberman for its apparent demise. Feingold said that responsibility ultimately rests with President Barack Obama and he could have insisted on a higher standard for the legislation.

"This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth," said Feingold. "I think they could have been higher. I certainly think a stronger bill would have been better in every respect."

Let's repeat that: "This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place."
...
It's also worth noting how completely antithetical claims are advanced to defend and excuse Obama. We've long heard -- from the most blindly loyal cheerleaders and from Emanuel himself -- that progressives should place their trust in the Obama White House to get this done the right way, that he's playing 11-dimensional chess when everyone else is playing checkers, that Obama is the Long Game Master who will always win. Then, when a bad bill is produced, the exact opposite claim is hauled out: it's not his fault because he's totally powerless, has nothing to do with this, and couldn't possibly have altered the outcome. From his defenders, he's instantaneously transformed from 11-dimensional chess Master to impotent, victimized bystander.

The supreme goal is to shield him from all blame. What gets said to accomplish that goal can -- and does -- radically change from day to day.

I love that "11-dimensional chess" stuff. Hilarious. Idiocy on the face of it. Obama's a genius! No wait, he's a victim! Well played, Blue Dogs...

Fucking A...

And here's Anthony Weiner (Congressman New York's 9th District) complaining about it all:

http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.aspx?id=1384

"Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge? It’s time for the President to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the President to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate."

There's more at HuffPo too (although I sometimes find them to merely follow the progressive polls - this time they know that we progressives are really and truly pissed off):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/16/democrats-lash-out-at-oba_n_394424.html

"The president keeps listening to Rahm Emanuel," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). "No public option, no extending Medicare to 55, no nothing, an excise tax, God!" he exclaimed about the Senate health care bill to Roll Call. "The insurance lobby is taking over."

What's it all mean? Obama is failing on every front. And there's no longer any reason to be distracted by this in name only attempt at "health care reform."

He meant to blow it. He is blowing it. It's blown.

Done deal.

They might still pull reconciliation out of their collective asses, but I doubt it. The oligarchy opposes it.

Gentle Landings

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There is nothing like a good visual aid to fully grasp the problem.

Jump You Fuckers! Part Three

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/business/economy/14pay.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1234588665-ORtEVmI52gmQ0XJ7wx5I/A

A provision buried deep inside the $787 billion economic stimulus bill would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at financial institutions that are much tougher than those proposed 10 days ago by the Treasury Department.

The provision, inserted by Senate Democrats over the objections of the Obama administration, is aimed at companies that have received financial bailout funds. It would prohibit cash bonuses and almost all other incentive compensation for the five most senior officers and the 20 highest-paid executives at large companies that receive money under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The stimulus package was approved by the House on Friday, then by the Senate in the late evening.

The pay restrictions resemble those that the Treasury Department announced this month, but are likely to ensnare more executives at many more companies and also to cut more deeply into the bonuses that often account for the bulk of annual pay.

The restriction with the most bite would bar top executives from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual pay. Any bonus would have to be in the form of long-term incentives, like restricted stock, which could not be cashed out until the TARP money was repaid in full.
...
“These rules will not work,” James F. Reda, an independent compensation consultant, said on Friday. “Any smart executive will (a) pay back TARP money ASAP or (b) get another job.”

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Congress Trumps Obama by Cuffing Bonuses for CEOs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021303288.html?hpid=topnews

"This is a big deal. This is a problem," said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the nation's largest financial services firms. "It undermines the current incentive structure."

Talbott said banking executives expected certain restrictions would be applied to them but are concerned that some of the most highly paid employees, such as top traders, who bring in hefty sums for the company, would flee to hedge funds or foreign banks that have not accepted U.S. government funds.

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Incredible, ain't it?

Just a heads up fellas...



For Whom the Bell Tolls
by John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Avoiding Oversight At All Costs

Some Banks Want to Return Government Money
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/business/economy/11wall.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Paying back all those funds would be difficult in this tough economic environment. But banking executives worry that the government may intrude further into their businesses as long as they are beholden to Washington.

“We just think that operating our business without the government capital would be an easier thing to do,” said David A. Viniar, the chief financial officer of Goldman. “We’d be under less scrutiny, and under less pressure. Not that we’d be out of the public eye; we’re still going to be in the public eye.”

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Facing Oversight, Banks Go on Offense
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/10/AR2009021003302.html?hpid=topnews

The banks helmed by Blankfein and the other seven chief executives called to appear before the House Financial Services Committee this morning received $165 billion from the $700 billion government bailout. Lawmakers are furious at the executives over accounts of their lavish spending since receiving the taxpayer funds, and have attacked them for hoarding the money instead of using it to boost lending.

"This is going to be a torture session for them; they know they are going to be pilloried, particularly by the Democrats on the committee," said Anne Mathias, director of policy research for Stanford Group, a financial services firm. "They know that they have to reframe the debate on their own terms and show that they understand the public frustration."

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Obama on Nationalization
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/02/obama-on-nationalization.html

Obama: Sweden, on the other hand, had a problem like this. They took over the banks, nationalized them, got rid of the bad assets, resold the banks and, a couple years later, they were going again. So you'd think looking at it, Sweden looks like a good model. Here's the problem; Sweden had like five banks. [LAUGHS] We've got thousands of banks. You know, the scale of the U.S. economy and the capital markets are so vast and the problems in terms of managing and overseeing anything of that scale, I think, would -- our assessment was that it wouldn't make sense. And we also have different traditions in this country.

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Yeah, that's Obama getting it completely wrong. Wrong as wrong can be...

And who benefits? Exactly.

We do not benefit. Not you and I. Not Main street. The ones that used deregulation and off-shoring to destroy a strong economy are still being handed gold on silver platters while the rest of us go without.

But we must continue going without because we have different traditions in this country. Traditions like what Obama - plutocracy?

Why not nationalise?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/01/why_not_nationalise.cfm

...Not really on the list was nationalisation.

But it seems to me, based on an ongoing blogospheric discussion, that nationalisation is the only good option left. The basic problem is this—some banks are likely insolvent. Any option that solves the problem by buying bad assets will either fail (if those assets are bought at face value—recall, the banks are insolvent) or will succeed by buying those assets at well more than they're worth. The latter option is a large and generous gift to the bank's shareholders.

The question is, why would one want to give a large and generous gift to bank shareholders, out of the taxpayer's purse?...

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Exactly. And remember, this is from that well-known "liberal" source the "Economist."

Nationalization is the only solution and always was. But the elite want their handouts and politicians abhor doing their actual job of providing oversight in these matters.

This what we do:
We nationalize insolvent banks and then hold onto their toxic waste real estate or put it to work housing the homeless. Later we can sell these banks to other banks once the subprime debris is cleared away. Once the economy stiffens a bit we can unload the real estate at improved market prices. The taxpayer might not even lose anything at all in such an arrangement.

But yeah, that makes too much sense to actually be implemented.

And so it goes...

We can only hope...

Killer Economy? The deepening recession may lead to growth in suicide rates.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/179422?from=rss

Recent weeks have seen a spate of suicides by some of the most financially powerful people in the world. German billionaire industrialist Adolf Merckle lay down in front of a train after huge investment losses threatened his family's business empire. Chicago real-estate mogul Steven Good shot and killed himself in the driver's seat of his Jaguar after the property-auction business turned sour. René -Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet lost $1.4 billion to Bernie Madoff, went to work, took sleeping pills and slit his wrist.
...[skipped]...
"Middle-class people are less likely to commit suicide over money troubles because gains and losses are never that disproportionate; their family relationships tend to be closer, deeper and broader; and their religious beliefs are stronger and play a greater role in buffering their sense of hopelessness."

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Good news is hard to find so this will have to do. Now I'd like to see a billionaire suicide stimulus package.

That'll do nicely, comrade.

BofA Buying Up Banks on TARP Funds

Bank of America May Get U.S. Aid for Merrill Lynch
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aei_22INcQaI&refer=home

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Gee, I guess they are getting to be too big to fail. Of course, they are acquiring so many assets themselves that there is no liquidity for lending.

Will we never learn?

Paulson's Billions!

Paulson wants his other $350 billion to allocate according to his private whims. Reality has become a bad remake of Richard Pryor's Brewster's Millions. Well, except that Paulson is playing with someone else's money and burning through it like he was on a drunken shopping spree.

I'm so glad we avoided that $15 billion auto industry bailout. We saved just enough by doing that to actually give them $17.4 billion instead. But that's the current estimate, these things tend to grow like Pinocchio's nose and for the same reason.

Thanks for the American dream,To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through. - William Burroughs

Top Broker Accused of Fraud

Madoff, Money Manager for the Wealthy, Said to Have Run '$50 Billion Ponzi Scheme'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122903010173099377.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Quip: Is he just talking about fractional reserve banking or did he do something even worse?

Buh-dum-bump!

The Rats are Planning to Leave the Sinking Ship of State

I used to joke about this during long political rants to my friends and loved ones. Screeching in a high voice I would make doomsday pronouncements about the top 1% elite investor class burning American workers because they could "...float off on a golden parachute and go live in the United Arab Emirates!"

Oh yeah! You WANT to invite ME to your next dinner party!

Did I mention the screeching?

What I didn't know as a fact, something I had completely missed somehow, was this:
HALLIBURTON OPENS CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
- Chairman, President and CEO Moves to Dubai to Focus Company’s Eastern Hemisphere Growth -
http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/news.jsp?newsurl=/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/press_release/2007/corpnws_031107.html

Yeah, that sounds great! Except that I think it has more to do with escaping prosecution for crimes against the people of the United States. Darth Cheney must have nice new digs in a luxury high rise located in Dubai.

Call me crazy but I think there are portions of the U.S. Constitution that attempt to prevent us from being ruled by people whose true personal interests are beyond our borders.

Tick...tick...tick...

Try $4.28 trillion dollars!

Source:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27719011

CNBC brings the pain by tracking the numbers closely. And what does it all get you - the taxpayer?

Nobody knows!

Paulson, Bernanke and Kashkari must have lots of kids in need of an Action Jackson with a Kung Fu grip this Xmas season...

Where does it all go?

It's quite simple really. We are in the hands of foreign powers.

Update: Foxes (from yesterday)

Two more links of interest:

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Banks “We have better things to do with that money you gave us than lend it out”
http://firedoglake.com/2008/10/25/banks-we-have-better-things-to-do-with-that-money-you-gave-us-than-lend-it-out/

The US has shoved 5 trillion dollars at this problem since the crisis started last year. Enough is enough. Money alone is clearly not sufficient, and that means more stern measures need to be taken. The financial industry, whose hubris is so great they just announced 70 billion of bonuses for themselves after getting a taxpayer bailout, needs to learn that they exist for the purpose of serving the overall economy, not themselves. This is especially true of banks, whose entire business model relies on the government giving them the right to create money, to borrow money at concessionary rates that no one else receives, and so on. Banks are entirely creatures of the government who exist because the government gives them what amounts to a license to print money under certain circumstances. They are in no way a "naturally free market".

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Bailout Free-For-All: Companies Line Up For Cash
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1853819,00.html?iid=digg_share?iid=perma_share

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OK then...

That first link is going to seem like capitalist heresy to many Americans because they still think that saving the "free market" is the agenda. Sadly, the very necessity of any kind of bailout proves that a "free market" doesn't exist and never will and that any unrestrained capitalism will fail because of human greed.

The second link is proof of that greed even in the midst of crisis. Every hand is out, and the most shameless of all are those of rich people.

"Free money? Gimme...!"

That's why Warren Buffett bought preferred stock. He wants to be sure that when profits are to be had he gets paid first. That's how they are - even when they are as rich as blazes, it's never enough.

The Foxes Guarding the Hen House

Paulson and Kashkari are the biggest con men we have going. These two chrome domes would stick a knife in your grandmother and then steal the gold from her teeth. Is it too ass-holy to note that one of these dudes surnames looks like it literally means "cash n' carry"? So yeah, I see Kaskkari as a man that walks off with the goods. What a pair!

So When Will Banks Give Loans?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/25nocera.html?pagewanted=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

It is starting to appear as if one of Treasury's key rationales for the recapitalization program — namely, that it will cause banks to start lending again — is a fig leaf, Treasury's version of the weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, Treasury wants banks to acquire each other and is using its power to inject capital to force a new and wrenching round of bank consolidation. As Mark Landler reported in The New York Times earlier this week, "the government wants not only to stabilize the industry, but also to reshape it." Now they tell us.

Indeed, Mr. Landler's story noted that Treasury would even funnel some of the bailout money to help banks buy other banks. And, in an almost unnoticed move, it recently put in place a new tax break, worth billions to the banking industry, that has only one purpose: to encourage bank mergers. As a tax expert, Robert Willens, put it: "It couldn't be clearer if they had taken out an ad."

...[skipped]...

"We share your view," Mr. Kashkari replied. "We want our banks to be lending in our communities."

Senator Dodd: "Are you insisting upon it?"

Mr. Kashkari: "We are insisting upon it in all our actions."

But they are doing no such thing. Unlike the British government, which is mandating lending requirements in return for capital injections, our government seems afraid to do anything except plead. And those pleas, in this environment, are falling on deaf ears.

...[skipped]...

Late Thursday afternoon, I caught up with Senator Dodd, and asked him what he was going to do if the loan situation didn’t improve. "All I can tell you is that we are going to have the bankers up here, probably in another couple of weeks and we are going to have a very blunt conversation," he replied.

He continued: "If it turns out that they are hoarding, you'll have a revolution on your hands. People will be so livid and furious that their tax money is going to line their pockets instead of doing the right thing. There will be hell to pay."

-----

And this is why you don't write blank checks without significant oversight and detailed instructions as to what to do with the money. I mean, we taxpayers aren't even stakeholders in any of this. Once again we trust in the good will of free-wheeling investors and bank presidents.

Did anyone hear the guilty admission of Greenspan yesterday? He basically admitted that he is a blinkered know-nothing. Of course, this is substantially after he has profited from his supposed ignorance.

Fascism and Taxes: The Nexus

Wiki defines fascism as: "...a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology." Now I'm going to let you collect the other dots on that one, but it does mean that fascism is often seen as collusion between the state and corporate entities.

Many recent events have convinced me that the people are absolutely not in charge in the USA, if they ever were. Taxpayers will be forced to foot the $5K per capita price for the Wall Street bailout (the necessity of which remains significantly in doubt) and we will soon be forced to pay even more for the proposed bank bailout (some of which may be necessary) and eventually we will also see a mortgage bailout (unless we are willing to accept that hundreds of thousands of people will soon become homeless and therefore a drain on local governments).

Who will pay for all of this? Why YOU WILL, of course.

Why? Because of the nexus that exists between our government and monied interests:

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Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1249465620080812?sp=true

Dorgan in a statement called the report "a shocking indictment of the current tax system." Levin said it made clear that "too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States."

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The phrase "tax trickery" is a euphemism for elements of the tax code that are effectively handouts to corporations. It's not a mistake nor trickery of any kind. The only ones being fooled are the taxpayers themselves who apparently have no representation.

Taxation without representation. I think I have heard that before...

Un-fucking-believable!

AIG, Castigated for Resort Event, Plans Another One (Update2)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVXfypExIZ9M

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc., castigated by the White House, Congress and Barack Obama for hosting a $440,000 conference days after an $85 billion federal bailout, plans to hold another gathering for brokers next week.

The event, at the Ritz-Carlton in California's Half Moon Bay, aims to "motivate and educate" about 150 independent agents who sell AIG coverage to high-end clients, said spokesman Nicholas Ashooh.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino today called "despicable" expenses from the first gathering, a weeklong conference last month at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach. Those costs included $23,000 for spa services, according to Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

AIG considered buying advertisements to explain its position, only to be told by public relations consultant George Sard that it would be "a really bad idea."

...[skipped]...

Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, said during last night's debate with Republican candidate John McCain that AIG should repay the U.S. Treasury for the costs of the event.

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Comment:

Honestly, isn't this exactly how you would act if it was clear that there was absolutely no penalty for the foolish manner in which you conducted your business? I mean, if I were handed billions of dollars for my mistakes I might be inclined to make many more mistakes in the future too!

And BTW, that's going to be about $5000+ USD per taxpayer for the bailout. I know you've been hearing $2000+ USD per person in the U.S. - but they aren't all taxpayers right now. I agree that many of them will be taxpayers and that they will likely still be paying off this kind of shit. But for now, it's on the backs of 138 million or so taxpayers we have today.

Senator Obama: this is why you should have voted "nay," you dumb-fuck! It's your job as a senator to protect the people from this kind of waste and corruption - not to vote for it and thereby force the taxpayer to pay for it.

Reverse Robin Hood: Privatizing Gains and Socializing Risk

[N.B. This post is mainly a string of quotes from various sources that I have attempted to weave together into a narrative web of ideas. I wanted to engage this complex material with reputable sources to answer these three main questions: What exactly happened to the economy? How did it start? What do we do now, if anything?]

The claim is that we are faced with both a national and global financial crisis. Before we accept either assertion we need to dig into the history of recent events. Who intends to act upon this crisis and who is taking a "wait and see" approach? As you shall see, things are not what they seem and elsewhere many people seem substantially untroubled by what is taking place. Markets correct themselves. Some people win. Some people lose. We cannot save everyone. Maybe we shouldn't save anyone at all.

It starts with overweening greed and "globalization."

In the year 2000 the total amount of money available for financial transactions was the equivalent of a mere $36 trillion. Globalization and the resulting economic growth of markets doubled that amount of money so that by the year 2006 international investors were looking for ways to invest their now $70 trillion and still make a handsome profit. The problem was that there really wasn't $70 trillion worth of good investments to be had. Unsatisfied with a few paltry percentage points to be made on their money per annum with US Treasury Bonds, the investors wanted yields of 10-15%. 20% if they could get it. Now I don't care what anyone else tells you, but when the returns are that high there is risk and every investor knows that fact. But international investors wanted to be lied to and told that they realistically could be making that kind of return on their money. With that $70 trillion burning holes in pockets all over the world you just know that someone was going to step up and give those greedy bastards exactly what they wanted: a good swindling! Enter a new form of investment: the CDO, mortgage securities, etc. These various financial instruments are basically packaged up versions of bad mortgages, leveraged time and again, until they are made to look like good investments. But you've heard that old cliche: you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. What they were doing was taking bad mortgages - desired by greedy and unscrupulous borrowers against the equity in their homes and brokered by greedy and unscrupulous lenders who were lying their asses off in order to cash out their commissions - and selling them off as packaged deals higher up the financial food chain. The claim was that while each mortgage might be bad individually, taken as a whole they would perform very well because the real estate bubble would simply never pop and just keep expanding ad infinitum. Uh huh, that's what they wanted to believe. Sure, they could have made much safer investments but you know how it goes: live fast, spawn, and die. That's the new ethic of the globalized world. But how could anyone get away with selling this toxic waste mortgage manure to someone with the claim that it was as solid an investment as US Treasury Bonds? Isn't that a lie on its face? Yes, it is- but the reason they got away with it is that they used inaccurate data models to support the logic of these doomed to fail investment instruments. You might be wondering how and why these toxic waste mortgages exist in the first place. The answer to that is predictable: overweening greed and deregulation. As it turns out, without step by step regulation and oversight people often succumb to greed and the temptations of fraud. Who knew?! [The above is my own brutal redaction of what you could hear and read at "This American Life."]
Source: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355
Transcript (PDF): http://www.thisamericanlife.org/extras/radio/355_transcript.pdf

Every industry wants you to believe that they are owed a deregulated environment so that they can operate as they please. The claim is that the extravagantly wealthy upper class creates jobs because of the restaurants they patronize, the various services they use, the houses they buy, the cars they drive, the Manolo Blahnik shoes they buy their mistresses, the roses and jewelry they buy for their wives, and the housekeepers and gardeners that they employ. So, perhaps you want to support the bailout simply because the fallout will displace so many persons in such service and employ. But one's job is only a matter of chance. Everybody that works for Wall Street directly or indirectly would be working somewhere else if it didn't exist. Claiming that their jobs create other jobs may have some truth to it, but that's trickle down economics at its worst and ugliest - you don't get to keep your job after you screw things up, you lose your job! You don't get bailed out and you don't get a raise. Wall Street was significantly deregulated in the late 1990s but instead of creating a robust and healthy economy they have bled it almost dry. Personally, I don't think that such actions merit a reward.

D.C. and Wall Street people have been whining about how important and necessary the bailout is and how it has to happen right now to save the global economy. United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had this to say:

"The credit markets are still very fragile right now and frozen...We need to deal with this and deal with it quickly." Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/21/paulson-resisting-democra_n_128035.html

Who is this guy Henry Merritt Paulson Jr? He served under John Ehrlichman in the Nixon administration. He's the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs. Could he just be there to enrich his buddies at Goldman Sachs and also his elite pals in China? Did you know that they were planning to enrich foreign banks and investors with the bailout?

"Paulson's Conflicts Of Interest Spark Concern"
"I think that Hank Paulson's corporate...record is very important. While he was a Goldman Sachs, the company was buying up a lot of Chinese banks in particular, and at the time of his nomination, there were very serious questions raised about the conflicts of interest involved, and where his priorities are, and who he really is looking after."...Moreover, as Bloomberg News reported: "Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley may be among the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion U.S. plan to buy assets from financial companies while many banks see limited aid..."
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/paulsons-conflicts-of-int_n_128476.html

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson confirmed the change on ABC's "This Week," telling George Stephanopoulos that coverage of foreign-based banks is "a distinction without a difference to the American people." Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13690.html

Hey, it makes a difference to me! I want to support a way of life similar to my own, not the way of life under the quasi-capitalistic, totalitarian regime of communist China! These gamblers at the tables on Wall Street need to be made to live with the result of their own foolish greed just like all the idiots that go Las Vegas every day. These guys gamble their fortunes away and now want to pass the hat around. And who will join the American people in this show of extravagant largesse to the sad investor class? No one is who:

But there was little appetite to mimic Paulson's scheme to buy up toxic mortgage-related debt from financial firms..."At the moment, I don't think Japan needs to launch a program similar to that of the United States," Japanese Vice Finance Minister Kazuyuki Sugimoto told reporters in Tokyo, echoing similar comments from France, Britain and Germany...The European Union also made it clear that it would not be joining a rescue package. EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told a conference in Slovakia that individual national governments would have to decide on their own..."It's up to them to consider whether they can follow this initiative," he said. Source: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USLM62629820080922

We have to go this one alone. So, how much is it going to cost Joe and Jane Sixpack? Oh, you know, not too much...

With the cost of the proposed bailout effort equal to about $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States, Democrats began pushing for language in the rescue plan that would steers additional aid to homeowners struggling to stay in their homes and prevent foreclosures. Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/695587.html

Well, that's an interesting point. But don't these wizards of Wall Street really need the money quite badly?

In 2007, Wall Street's five biggest firms-- Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley - paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves...That's $10 billion more than the $29 billion loan taxpayers are making to J.P. Morgan to save Bear Stearns...Those 2007 bonuses were paid even though the shareholders in those firms last year collectively lost about $74 billion in stock declines --their worst year since 2002...If split equally among the approximately 186,000 workers at the former Big Five Houses, that bonus money means an average of $201,500 per person -- more than four times the $48,201 median household income in the U.S. last year. Source: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/last-years-big.html

It almost seems as if you could take the bonuses handed out last year to these wizards of Wall Street and pay for parts of the bailout that way, right? Like gamblers at a fantasy high stakes table, these idiots want to gamble with the security of knowing they can't lose. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, offered up the following comment on the bailout as from the perspective of one of the Wall Street wizards that put themselves into this mess:

"Heads I win, tails I break even." Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21cong.html?pagewanted=print

Paulson's solution is simply to buy out the private losses with public funds. That is exactly the equivalent of reverse Robin Hood: privatizing gains and socializing risk! Here's more on his solution:

Paulson and the Federal Reserve are trying to replay the bailout approach used in the 1980s for the savings and loan crisis, but this situation is utterly different. The failed S&Ls held real assets--property, houses, shopping centers--that could be readily resold by the Resolution Trust Corporation at bargain prices. This crisis involves ethereal financial instruments of unknowable value--not just the notorious mortgage securities but various derivative contracts and other esoteric deals that may be virtually worthless...Despite what the pols in Washington think, the RTC bailout was also a Wall Street scandal. Many of the financial firms that had financed the S&L industry's reckless lending got to buy back the same properties for pennies from the RTC--profiting on the upside, then again on the downside. Guess who picked up the tab? I suspect Wall Street is envisioning a similar bonanza--the chance to harvest new profit from their own fraud and criminal irresponsibility. Source: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/greider

What Paulson wants is a blank check and absolute authority.

"Dirty Secret Of The Bailout: Thirty-Two Words That None Dare Utter"
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

The rescue plan would give sweeping powers to the U.S. Treasury to buy up toxic mortgage-related debt from financial groups, including U.S. subsidiaries of foreign banks. Source: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN1945959820080922

I just love that foreign banks bit. It really makes you wonder who our supposed representatives really represent. If they represented us wouldn't they be taking money from the investors and giving it to us taxpayers to compensate us for all the stuff they have been doing to gut the economy and offshore production? Instead, they would seem to want money from every man, woman and child to help feed the greed of Wall Street and international investors. Does that make any sense to anyone? Barney Frank again:

"I don't want the American taxpayer to get this bad debt and then the guy (whose company once held the bad loans) gets millions of dollars on his way out the door." Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/21/paulson-resisting-democra_n_128035.html

But...Paulson claims his plan should make the taxpayers whole, once the housing market recovers and the mortgage securities are resold. Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/695587.html

Resold to whom? Why in all the circles of hell would anyone want to buy up all of those toxic waste mortgages? Right, they wouldn't want to! But if you put a legislative gun to their heads via taxation you can make the American people pay for anything: private oil/resource wars, investment failures, whatever...

These fancy toxic waste mortgage investment instruments are often worth absolutely nothing. I am sure you've been reading about foreclosed homes that are being vandalized and looted of everything inside them. All the valuable appliances are gutted from the houses. Even the copper electrical wires are taken by thieves for their weight as scrap metal. Those houses either have to be torn down or substantially rebuilt! There's hardly any money left in them.

But Paulson doesn't know that. Is that right?

I don't believe that for one moment.

The whole thing is a fraud. At the prices we taxpayer's will pay it's going to be one big con with nearly zero chance that we will ever recovery anything from the transaction. Bush is arguing that the government isn't even going to really take managerial control of these decimated companies - just hand them money and hope for the best. Quick money, no oversight, and hope for the best! That's the keen financial insight of "acting" president Bush for you: garbage in, garbage out.

Chuck Collins at The Nation says we should "Tax the Speculators." Hey, maybe we can wring something good from this great financial evil after all. Here are Collins' main recomendations, but you should go read them in detail too:
1. Institute a Financial Transactions Tax.
2. Impose an Income Tax Surcharge Rate on Incomes Over $5 Million.
3. Eliminate the Tax Preference for Capital Gains.
4. Progressive Inheritance Taxes.
5. Eliminate Taxpayer Subsidies for Excessive CEO Pay.
6. Close Offshore Corporate Tax Havens.
Source: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/collins

You might want to read this one too:
"10 Things You Should Know About Bush's Trillion Dollar Fleecing Plan"
Source: http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/99876

But I wouldn't hold my breath hoping for those changes. If those things were to ever happen I would think it would have been on the heels of a bloody revolution...

It's all so fucking funny. Everything that "they" do matters so much. If they keep or lose a job it matters. If they profit or go bankrupt it matters so very much. Whole factories close and no one really does much for the workers except offer some early retirement and severance packages. Those jobs go offshore to India, Thailand, Malaysia, China, etc. No one cares. But if a Wall Street gambler loses big we have to bail him out.

Why is that?

This is a great example of the kind of protectionism that our supposedly "free markets" actually operate under. There is no free market anywhere on earth - just one class of people that are very well connected and the many other groups of people that are very not. There is no free enterprise. What we have is socialism of the investor class but not of our society as a whole. The select get protected and the rest of us get the shaft. We don't own the means the means of productions. We don't own anything except our extravagant debts - the debts we hold individually and as the citizens of this once great nation. But that was all before the looting began. Now we shall be forever in debt: taking the financial risks while the wizards of Wall Street make the money. They get bailed out while you can't even declare bankruptcy any longer - it just gets renegotiated over a longer period of time. The investor class gets off the hook while you remain on the hook. And so it goes...

They want a blank check, unlimited authority to unload their debts onto you, no regulation and no oversight.

I recommend that you call and email your elected officials and send them the clear message that this bailout stinks and that you won't stand for it. Even if you support the bailout (yikes!), take a stand on the many important oversight powers that such a deal should entail. Don't let them gloss over the details and hand Wall Street a blank check.

Find your elected officials:
http://www3.capwiz.com/c-span/home/

When was the last time you were handed a trillion dollars with no accountability?

McCain's Reverse Robin Hood Healthcare Plan!

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

"Better Care at Lower Cost for Every American"
http://www.contingencies.org/septoct08/mccain.pdf

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Yeah, that's rich - certainly it serves the purposes of the very rich! Can McCain have really have stated something so egregiously stupid?

I guess no one hipped him to the fact that the wonderfully deregulated banking industry has driven our economy straight to the brink and is now set to cost Joe and Jane Sixpack over a trillion borrowed dollars to set things right again. Yup, they will fix the fuck up and then everything will be great again. Except that many are still going to be foreclosed upon. Many borrowers will still be on the hook for what should have been illegal loans. Personal bankruptcy has been made substantially more difficult than ever, and forget about forgiveness for educational loans (even though the many western nations offer free merit-based educations). And not one of the Wall Street fools that has robbed from the middle-class will ever see a single day in jail for fraud.

Yes, what we need more of right now is the kind of Reverse Robin Hood thinking that will put even more money into the hands of those who already have so much they don't even know what to do with it. If the absurd notion of "trickle down" economics should ever have worked, why isn't it working right now? Where's that money trickling down to right now?

Nowheres-ville.

Vote Reverse Robin Hood. Vote McCain!

What Real Crime Looks Like...

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1249465620080812

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.

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But obviously it's really important to go after individual tax payers because there is absolutely no other game in town.

::rolls eyes::

The Revolving Door of K Street

The Revolving Door of K Street
http://newsproject.org/node/83

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In case you didn't realize how some of this bullshit works...