Archive for category Financial Crisis
Harry Markopolos’ $50 Billion Dollar Failure
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Crime & Punishment, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, Politics, Sarah Palin, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on March 2nd, 2010
![dumb and dumber [2]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dumb-and-dumber-23.jpg "dumb and dumber [2]")
S.E.C. LAWYERS’ GRADUATION CLASSES: 1999-2008
If you hired a security guard to watch your house, and it kept getting burglarized – even after someone told him countless times who the thief was – would you let him keep his job?
Stupid question, you say? Really?
So why do we keep the same morons on our government payroll to watch the financial markets? Now that is a good question. And there really is a simple answer. The foxes make sure to instruct their under-lords to have those dumb sharecropper farmers whom they pay beggars wages to for working their land, to keep that same old deaf and blind dog guarding the chicken coop. This metaphor should not be lost on anyone.
Bernie Madoff may be a household word – and one of Time magazines 2009 Top 100 people who affected the world. But Harry Markopolus is just another quiet hero in a global financial market run by pimps and whores. Markopolus has a new book coming out today called, “No One Would Listen“. The book chronicles the story of how Markopolus doggedly pursued a fraud case against Bernie Madoff from 1999 through 2008 by trying to get the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawyers to investigate Madoff’s House of Cards. All to no avail.
WTF you might ask? At least that’s what I have been saying since this story first broke in early 2009 when Markopolus testified before Congress (you can read his testimony right here), and then was interviewed by CBS’s 60 Minutes.
This is beyond a comedy of errors. This is Dumb and Dumber, The Three Stooges, and Beevis and Butthead all working in concert to unwittingly thwart one another while the criminals continued to steal from us with unbridled impunity. Now is that not a terrifying image? Meet your S.E.C., America. Wall Street owns these guys.
Starting in 1999, Markopolus made several attempts to give the most fundamental proof of Madoff’s fraud to numerous investigators at the S.E.C. - all of which was either willfully or woefully ignored (Markopolus calls them “idiots” – that is too kind, don’t you think, Sarah Palin? I would have called them retards). By 2007, he was fed up with their wanton stupidity, and decided to document it by submitting a nineteen (19) page memorandum to the S.E.C. outlining the basis for his claim. That too, was ignored.
View the complete 60 Minutes interview with Markopolos - or just watch the real BOMBSHELL from minute 7:25 to 8:18 of the interview. That brief one minute segment is incomprehensible. And you wonder why so many investors were “Madoffed” by Bernie?
So after all this, has anything changed?
Hell no!
Harry Markopolus is still trying to settle his first big whistle-blower case, he has spent years living in fear, and yet he remains undeterred in his dogged pursuit of financial racketeers and corporate fraudsters. Of course, his new book should help keep his wife and young boys fed until payday comes. Ironically, Markopolus refers to himself as a “$50 Billion dollar failure”- because he could not get the S.E.C. to listen. One might conclude that he is being flippant, since he all but beat them over the head with his evidence. However, he is serious about characterizing this as his “failure” - he honestly takes it very personally that all these people were hurt by Madoff’s fraud in the face of the S.E.C.’s utter incompetence.
You just have to love this man. After all this, the crooks and the “police” shirk responsibility, and the hero feels guilty? And you wonder why it seems the world has started spinning in the other direction?
Meanwhile, back at the S.E.C., they are still re-disorganizing the deck chairs on the U.S.S. Financial Titanic, and there should be smooth sailing on the calm seas of Neo-Capitalism all the way back to port. No need to worry. They have their securities regulation minions fast asleep on night watch while the next massive financial iceberg awaits in the darkness. And brace yourself, because this next one’s really going to be a doozy folks.
In the meantime, bring them some Dom Perignon, the exquisite pate’, and that rare Russian escargot they just had imported, all paid for with your financial bailouts. And don’t forget to put that on a silver platter.
Oh, they almost forgot to mention it. You can ignore the water rising on the Italian marble dining room floor. That’s just from the watered-down financial regulation reform we are about to get from Wall Street’s wholly-owned public subsidiary, Congress. They have the S.E.C working on that minor leak down in the hull right now.
One Final Note: please do not bother counting the number of lifeboats. Those seats have all been reserved.
Enjoy the cruise. 
P.S. They saved several seats in the lifeboats for the S.E.C. lawyers. You didn’t really think the Financial Terrorists were going to row those things themselves, did you?
Federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff: A Lonely Soldier in the War Against Wall Street’s Financial Terrorists?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, U.S. District Courts, Wall Street, financial industry on February 26th, 2010
THE ONE MAN WITH BIG ENOUGH BALLS TO TAKE ON WALL STREET
Calling the Security and Exchange Commission’s legal settlement with Bank of America (BoA) “half-baked justice at best“, U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff reluctantly signed-off on the agreement between the two parties on Monday, writing in his order that “[t]his court, while shaking its head, grants the S.E.C.’s motion and approves the proposed consent judgment.”
Judge Rakoff is a true American Maverick, and a champion for American public shareholders.
I am not talking about some half-baked Sarah “Pretender” Palin maverick. This man is the real deal – and you can take that to the bank. Just don’t deposit it with Bank of America. Because when it comes to the truth, BoA – like the rest of the Wall Street Financial Terrorists – has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it simply cannot be trusted.
On several occasions this author has commented, here and here regarding the ongoing feud between that limp-dicked, impotent icon of American investor protection - the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) - and Judge Rakoff, over this settlement of Bank of America’s failure to disclose critical information in it’s SEC stock disclosure filings regarding the Merrill Lynch merger.
BoA shareholders were entitled to know the scale of Merrill Lynch’s liabilities, as well as the size of the bonuses that were to be paid to Merrill’s top executives, before approving the merger. However, none of that was disclosed in the filing, and BoA is blaming it’s former top legal counsel for it’s ostensibly innocent error in judgment.
During one of those previous court hearings, the Judge voiced his utter contempt for claims by both BoA and the SEC that none of the BoA executives were culpable for the material non-disclosure. He was further incensed over the irony that it would be BoA’s shareholders who would ultimately be the ones who were financially punished because the bank would have to pay the fines out of it’s profits, thus further diminishing the value of the shareholders stock. The judge lamented this fact, having preferred that BoA’s top executives pay the fines. Nonetheless, he begrudgingly approved the settlement.
Judge Rakoff is also currently presiding over a pending civil matter against J.P. Morgan Chase. In the order he issued on January 28, 2010 in that case, the Judge wrote that “JP Morgan thereby violated, at a minimum, the covenant of good faith and fair dealing” when it obviously attempted to structure a deal with one client in an effort to position itself so as to benefit another client in the same industry – a clear conflict of interest. The judge noted that “such an end run, if not a down right sham , is not permissable . . .”, insinuating J.P. Morgan committed fraud.
Felix Salmon, a well respected business writer and blogger, wrote a good analysis of Morgan’s corrupt business dealings in the matter titled How J.P. Morgan treats its clients: scandalously and in bad faith. As another writer so eloquently put it, “[w]e have entered a period of grotesque decadence in the financial and business dealings of those who brought us the great financial calamities.”
In the final irony in the BoA case, both the S.E.C. and Bank of America expressed just how pleased they were with the settlement. I’ll bet they were. Now the question becomes, when will the S.E.C. lawyers who worked on this case retire from “government service”, and take jobs with BoA or one of the other of the Wall Street Terrorist Organizations ? Anyone want to take a bet that this doesn’t happen?
I welcome any and all takers. And I will be laughing all the way to the bank when I win that bet. Just hope you were smart enough to hedge that wager Goldman Sachs-style by betting that I won’t be depositing my winnings in BoA. Because I won’t. Judge Rakoff would be disgusted with me, and rightfully so.
Thank Goodness We Have At Least One Man With Balls On Our Side!
Now the rest of you government weenies and politicians - grow some freakin’ testicles.
Thank Goodness Obama Healthcare Reform is Dead? Caveat Emptor . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Bailouts, Banking, Budget, Budget & Deficit, Budget Deficit, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Conservatives, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Medicare, Sarah Palin, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on February 12th, 2010
This is the face of the future for Republican Health Care and Social Security Reform – memorize it!
Now remember all of those terrifying Town Hall meetings in the Summer of 2009, where all you heard about on a daily basis were “Death Panels” and Medicare cuts, and Big Brother’s government bureaucrats making decisions about both the quality and quantity of health care you were going to receive?
You have nothing to worry about. Obama’s Health Care Reform is likely all but dead, and many of you will try to vote the Republicans back into power in this Fall’s mid-term elections so that they can protect you from Obama’s scary Socialist Big Government. Hip, Hip, Hooray (or is that Horror?) for their brand of Capitalism and individual freedom.
Except for one thing. The Republicans do not intend to protect you from anything (remember, that’s the point of shrinking government support). Including going broke in your retirement years from either rising health care costs, or diminishing retirement income. Think I am kidding? This is not hyperbole!
Ignore what follows at your own peril . . .
At the 2009 CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) - this is the Superbowl of Conservative power-brokers, with Glenn Beck as their 2010 Keynote Speaker - Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed that Medicare be completely dismantled, and replaced by a system of vouchers for seniors to purchase health insurance in the private sector.
Make no mistake about it: this will be the platform for the Republicans’ answer on how to reform health care once they are back in power. Do you doubt that? Well, Fox News reported that Ryan has been annointed as “the leader of future of the conservative movement.” That’s code for Republican Presidential nominee. He is their visionary, and here is his vision for American retirees’ Medicare and social security safety nets.
According to The Economist magazine, and an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Ryan’s “daring plan” will stimulate both the health insurance industry, as well as the health care industry, while slowing the growth of government health care spending; which is great if you are a Republican rising star like Ryan, who receives almost 40% of his political campaign contributions from health-related industries and their beneficiaries.
What’s not so great for retirees is that the CBO analysis shows why this is so great for the government and those industries: the dollar value of those vouchers you are going to get under Ryan’s plan will not rise as quickly as the projected costs of health care. Which means retirees will have higher out-of-pocket expenses as time goes on. And you can be certain that if those costs are going up, your private health insurance will also be going up at an equally rising rate – after all, they have to make a profit. That’s Capitalism. Right?
Another great thing about this plan – but not so great for retirees – is that the cost to the government will continue to grow more slowly because, as the CBO projections show, people will use less health care when they have to increasingly pay more and more out of their own pockets. Remember last summer when Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers scared you about the government rationing health care? Now you can do it to yourself!
In essence, Ryan’s Republican plan would make the government go broke more slowly than American retirees will, while temporarily keeping this growing health care crisis at bay another decade or two, and increase the profits of health-related industries along the way, forcing you to resort to receiving less and less health care as you grow older.
Don’t believe me? Do the math. It’s really that simple.
And Remember: Under the Republican Healthcare Reform Plan you will NOT even have Medicare supplemental insurance to fall back on. You wanted government out of your life . . . you got it!
So be happy you are not going to get Health Care Reform from Obama. I don’t mean to alarm you – especially after the Republicans scared you sufficiently enough to ensure health care reform would not get passed. After all, now they are free to begin selling you their notion of a “free market” alternative. Caveat emptor (”buyer beware”).
And recall the proverbial admonishment: “Be careful what you wish for . . . you just might get it.”
Happy retirement, America.
P.S. Ryan’s “free market plan” also calls for Social Security to be completely dismantled, and privatized. Surely the impact of that policy is not lost on anyone after the global financial markets collapsed for the second time in a decade – losing almost 40% of their value in both downturns, with average investment returns for the past ten (10) years of about 1%. What if your social security safety net was invested there? Hint: it’s not a “free market” proposal - the government will limit your choices on how you can invest your social security retirement. Are you really so naive as to think Wall Street won’t have their greedy fingers in that enormous financial pie? They own Washington, D.C.!
Obama Does Not Begrudge Wall Street Terrorists’ Robbing the National Treasury to make a Profit?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on February 10th, 2010
President Obama – you cannot be serious?!?
These Titans of Socialist Capitalism take the money we bailed them out with – including “rigging” the system with the help of Paulson and Geithner so that AIG’s TARP money was re-directed to them – go on to make an enormous profit by trading with that money (which was not the purpose of the bailouts), and you call them savvy businessmen?
Now almost a year ago to the day, you gave the following remarks at the White House:
“This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset – and rightfully so – are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”
So are they failures? Or savvy businessmen? Or both?
This author recently pondered your failure to immediately regulate and reign-in Wall Street after your election when they were still on the ropes. Here is the bottom line: They screwed up, then they screwed us, and then you screwed up?
Do you see the problem here, Mr. President. The cognitive dissonance regarding your words and deeds towards Wall Street is deeply disturbing to those who supported you in 2008, especially when you had the perfect combination of opportunity, power, and the political capital to reign in these financial terrorists right after you took an oath to protect the American people. You did nothing, and now it is too late. Was it intentional? Or are you being obtuse?
When political rhetoric collides with inaction, people become dismayed. Maybe the young voters who are stepping to the sidelines are correct?
Disillusionment is too mild a word for such a betrayal if it was just the “same old wine in a brand new bottle“, President Obama.
“Meet the new Boss . . . Same as the Old Boss . . .We Won’t Get Fooled Again!”
Shame on us for ever having the audacity to hope? I hope not.
OK, President Obama, “Where’s The Beef”?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Wall Street, economy on February 6th, 2010
You are making all of this noise about refocusing TARP (bailout) funds towards small business.
President Obama, this blog noted that you said the same thing 100 days ago . . . read it right here.
So Where’s The Beef?
Bank of America’s CEO Ken Lewis Will Play the “But We Made Lots of Money” Card in his Criminal Case?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Crime & Punishment, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, financial industry on February 5th, 2010
There is plenty of blame to go around in Washington and New York for the financial meltdown and subsequent bailout debacle. These Wall Street financial terrorists – Wizards of Mass Derivatives (WMD’s) – with the assistance of their Washington lackeys, Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke, et al., robbed the national treasury to pay the piper for their incompetence and then left us standing alone on the dance floor. And do not even go there about the fact that they “paid the money back” in their defense.
That dog won’t hunt!
Since our federal prosecutors would not grow some testicles and bring criminal indictments against any of these guys – with President Obama’s U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder leading the “Charge of the Lightweight Brigade” – New York AG Andrew Cuomo has demonstrated that he has big enough balls to make at least a couple of them pay for screwing us.
Ken Lewis, former CEO of Bank of America (BoA), was charged with committing fraud yesterday in a New York state court for his failure to divulge to BoA shareholders the extent of Merrill’s losses, as well as an undisclosed agreement to pay former Lynch executives massive bonuses, and that he intentionally misled the government by threatening to scuttle the deal in order to get another $20 billion in bailouts from the Treasury.
Sources from Lewis’ criminal defense team have indicated that they may subpoena Henry Paulson, former Bush Treasury Secretary, as well as Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the FederalReserve, to testify at Lewis’ trial in an attempt to persuade the jury that Lewis did not mislead the government about the severity of BoA’s financial condition subsequent to the banks merger with Merrill Lynch. They will further argue that the bank made money after the deal, and repaid all of the TARP money it received from the federal government, so the government and shareholders were not harmed – and in fact benefited from his actions (or inactions, as the case may be).
What is so unnerving is the audacity of Lewis to claim that “they made the company lot’s of money” as a defense. Worse yet, the Wall Street Journal comes to their defense, claming among other things that “TARP was a gilded straitjacket that every bank, including BofA, wanted to flee as quickly as possible”.
Really? Let’ review this twisted and misleading logic.
We made some really, really bad bets, and the financial system will collapse if you do not give us unprecedented bailouts to fix the system. Of course we understand that the government is giving us this money to restore the necessary liquidity - a continuous flow of money to keep the economy running – so that businesses can continue to borrow money, and keep people working. Now we are not going to making any promises to that effect, but we will do what we think is right for the financial system . Also, we accept that we have to purchase/merge with some of the other failed financial institutions as a condition of getting our asses saved. But we will not be obligated to deal honestly, nor follow financial regulations, in these business dealings, and if we see an opportunity to squeeze more money out of this mess, we will. Moreover, we will probably accept this unreasonable condition that you may limit our pay structure while we are under the obligation to pay the government back, but once we retire that debt to the government, you have to get off our ass and we can transact business however we like.
How dare them now have the arrogance to say they made money as a result of some uncanny business acumen. As I have stated previously in this blog – give me $15 or $20 Billion, I can make a Billion or so investing in some very conservative financial instruments over the course of a year, pay you back, give myself an obscene bonus – and then tell you to go FxxK youself!!
Moreover, REMEMBER THIS: they did NOT have to accept the money. Furthermore, they were supposed to lend the money, not hold it in reserve while waiting for the markets to turn North, and then invest it in order to make a quick killing so they could line their fat pockets, all the while leaving many Americans and businesses hung out to swing in the cold, harsh winds of their utter malfeasance. How utterly disingenuous of both Wall Street and the Wall Street Journal.
This author has previously commented several times about the criminal malfeasance of BoA in this blog – in this entry and in this entry - and questioned the refusal of federal prosecutors to bring charges in this matter. A Federal District Court Judge was appalled by BoA’s behavior, and was obviously disgusted that the U.S. government – specifically the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – was not doing more. If we have to wait for a New York Attorney General to act, this begs the question as to how deep in bed people at the top of this government are with Wall Street?
President Obama – you took money from Wall Street, and now you say you want them to be accountable? Prove it!
P.S. This same picture was used in a previous entry – it is the finest representative illustration of the BoA bailout I have seen on the Internet. Illustration by graphic artist David Dees of DeesIllustration.com
Americans Better Hope Obama Does Not Fail On Repairing the Economy
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Budget Deficit, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Sarah Palin, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on January 24th, 2010
Most Americans have a hard time with economic complexity, and reading charts . . . BORING!
Please stay with me on this one . It is far too important to ignore, because the graph posted above does not paint a pretty picture for the future of this country. If you do not care to understand the fundamentals, skip to the explanation and assessment at the bottom under “gobbly-gook“.
This graph was apparently created by Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch Global Equity Strategies research group for Bloomberg financial news (Bloomberg.com), and posted at one of my favorite investment and economic blogs – Seeking Alpha. For those of you who do not engage in economic analysis – I minored in Economics in undergraduate studies - this chart represents the comparative relationship since 1996 between the U.S. stock market (utilizing the S & P 500 as an indicator) and job growth/decline in the American labor market utilizing the U.S. Conference Board’s “job plentiful index”. The key factor here is the radical divergence between the stock market and jobs over the past seven years.
From 1996-2000, job growth grew lock-and-step with the stock market, and the job index was actually much higher than the relative market index – meaning that as businesses made money (profits), jobs were created – this concept of “wage labour“ correlating with profits is the single most fundamental component of Adam Smith’s original theory of Capitalism as outlined in his treatise The Wealth of Nations. Capitalism in its most simple of terms states that as companies compete for and secure profits, workers will benefit through both increased job opportunities and rising wages, all which serves the best interests of society.
If you follow the graph out from 2000-2003, both indexes dropped in remarkable comparison as a result of a relatively severe recession. However, after 2003, the stock market goes up, but job growth lags far behind, and this growing divergence is only temporarily halted by the financial meltdown in late 2008 – when the two lines meet again in early 2009. Now the divergence between the two is growing ever wider at an alarming rate.
So what does this gobbly-gook mean?
Simply put, the stock market believes publically-traded companies in the United States - which are overly-represented by very large corporations - will produce a growth in profits without creating more jobs.
What this really means is that no matter who is President – Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Mitt Rommney, John McCain, [you fill in the blank] – the future for the future of U.S. workforce looks bleak. Moreover, if you think putting the Republicans back in office will change that – with their proposed policies of cutting taxes, gutting business regulation, and further fostering the concentration of power in large corporations – you are only fooling yourself.
Obama said this past week that he is going to make the economy, specifically job creation, his number one priority. I had absolutely no illusions that Obama was going to be able to turn this mess around quickly – he was handed the second worst economic situation in U.S. history, coupled with two very expensive wars. Nonetheless, I am sorely disappointed in his failure to immediately regulate the financial system, and focus the bailouts on bolstering small and medium-size business to quickly boost employment. You can defend Big Business all you want, but it is statistically indisputable that small and medium size businesses provide over 50% of the jobs in this country, and produce 64% of the new jobs every year.
Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, would be astounded at the bailouts for Wall Street, and the subsequent consolidation (concentration of power) of these financial behemoths. Moreover, he would bemoan the fact that such an extraordinary amount of financial capital was squandered on such an inherently risk-weighted aspect of business (trading derivatives and securities), which only produces profits while creating virtually a statistically insignificant number of new jobs in comparison (which ironically, Wall Street was shedding jobs at a record pace while making record profits and bonuses on trading in 2009 – so as for creating new jobs, “that dog just won’t hunt”).
Better pray it’s not too late to redress these problems. Hoping Obama fails on this front, is proverbially speaking, biting you nose off in spite of your face.
P.S. The bailouts were a monumental failure - and the primary blame must be placed at the feet of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and present Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (former New York Federal Reserve Chairman) for reasons I address in a future posting. Paulson, Geithner and Blankfein could all be charged for conspiracy to commit financial fraud if Federal Prosecutors would just grow some testicles.
All Proposed U.S. Budget Deficit Reduction Plans Are “Nothing Burgers”
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Budget Deficit, Campaigns, Congress, Conservatives, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on January 24th, 2010
“Nothing Burger“: Two pieces of bread slapped together with nothing in between. Usually eaten when you have nothing in the house except bread or are too lazy to spend 2 minutes making a decent sandwich.
- definition in the The Urban Dictionary
This is utter laughable.
Senator Gregg Judd (R-New Hampshire), the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, claims the Democrats are not serious about cutting the deficit. He first offered a plan co-sponsored by Democratic Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D – North Dakota), that would require Congress to establish a bi-partisan commission to study deficit reduction recommendations, and if a fixed number of its members could agree on specific budget cuts, Congress would then be compelled to vote on those measures before the 2010 mid-term elections this Fall.
President Obama and the Democrats endorsed a similar deficit-reduction plan, but without the requirement of a mandatory vote in the Senate on the issue. Senator Gregg then criticized the Democrats, calling their plan a “nothing burger“, insinuating that they were not serious about deficit reduction. And the Republicans are?
Senator Gregg, you need a little lesson in transparency.
First, there is serious doubt about whether you can even get the support of your own party on this issue – both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (D – Ohio) stated they will not back the plan because the Republicans are philosophically opposed to tax increases. In other words, Republicans tacit acknowledge that deficit cutting would likely involve raising taxes, and they would rather let the country go bankrupt before they would make it pay its own way – now that is fiscal responsibility at its finest.
Second, that nasty little chart just below indicates that the real explosion in the government debt started in 1981 – after Ronald Reagan took office and the Neo-Conservative movement began. The largest deficit increases (as a percentage of the previous deficit) occurred from 2003 to 2006, not ironically when President Bush and the Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress. Moreover, that does not even account for the estimated $600 Billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we borrowed from China through 2007, – projected to increase to $1.6 Trillion before Obama took office - and which was “kept off the books” by the Bush Administration, Enron style.
Ouch!
Third, no Washington politician is ever going to be serious about fiscal responsibility, regardless of which party they belong to – it just does not make political sense if you are an incumbent running for re-election. Besides, Senator Gregg, proposing mandatory deficit reduction is easy when you are being disingenuous about the political realities of the issue.
One final word on that lesson about transparency, Senator Gregg: While serving as the Senate Republican’s lead negotiator and author of the TARP program (Wall Street bailouts) in the Fall of 2008, you recommended that Bank of America receive $45 Billion from the TARP funds – at a time when you owned millions of dollars in Bank of America stock. After your Bank of America stock recovered rather nicely this past year, you are now proposing that the TARP fund be terminated so as to not create a “piggy bank” for politicians.
And you have the audacity to criticize the Democrats, Senator Gregg?
President Obama: Yes! It’s The Economy, Stupid.
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Credit Card Industry, Dick Cheney, Economics, Financial Crisis, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Media & Communication, Politics, Sarah Palin, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Tea Party, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, financial industry on January 22nd, 2010
President Obama has been beyond a huge disappointment.
The reasons for his significant failure in the first year of his Presidency are varied, and yesterday I read a very insightful essay on MSN Money by Paul B. Farrell of the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch that hones in on a number of opportunities Obama could have seized upon as a result of the financial collapse that would have allowed him to increase the already significant political capital that he possessed on the day of his inauguration.
In the simplest parlance - he blew it!
This writer will have more to say on the specifics of those issues, but that is for another entry posted here on this blog. More importantly for purposes of today’s entry, I offer a humble mea culpa for my idealistic beliefs that this man was really different from all the others. I pride myself on being intellectually honest enough to admit that I was wrong about Obama’s willingness to effectuate any substantial change in this country with acumen and finesse. How stupid of me to believe that he would really first focus on the one issue that was at the forefront of every voter’s mind since November, 2007 - one year before the 2008 election – and has continuously been the leading issue for the past two years.
In the words of James Carville’s famous political mantra for the 1992 Clinton campaign, “It’s The Economy Stupid!”
Suddenly this week, the President finally has this incredible revelation that he needs to place the issue of the economy, as well as attend to financial system reform, at the top if his agenda? President Obama – how could you and all of these ostensibly intelligent people you surrounded yourself with have possibly missed that most salient and readily available information? Why did you not immediately address the failure of our economic system in it’s present form to serve the interests of its citizens, and redress the ongoing transgressions by the men who were responsible for single-handedly wrecking the underpinnings of American Capitalism? Why did you not implement substantial changes in how our economy is managed by imposing strict accountability, transparency and limitations on how the banking industry operated? Why did you trust that these financial terrorists would not not rob the national treasury for their own personal gain, instead turning a blind eye to their obvious avarice and indifference to the economic welfare of the country? Why did you not instruct Tim Geithner and the Treasury Department to direct the lending institutions to focus all of that available financial capital at shoring-up businesses and home values in order to preserve the essential assets so critical to the future of the American people, instead of bailing out these corrupt and incompetent financial giants? Why did you not utilize the available “bully pulpit” to chastise both your party and the Republicans for their unwillingness to use their legislative powers to immediately reign in these predatory financial giants, because of the “river of dirty money” (campaign contributions) running through Washington, D.C.?
Instead, you choose to ignore the over-arching importance of these matters, and wasted all of your hard-earned political capital by rubber-stamping the bailouts, and then embarking on an agenda of reforming an equally complex and failed health care system – a pathway that was historically fraught with political pitfalls and epic battles against powerful wealthy corporate interests. Anyone studying the history of American health care reform would know that simple fact.
Now, before any of you Conservatives start hooting and hollering in celebration of my criticism of the President, or my ”concession” regarding his obvious failures, let me inform you that your intellectual dishonesty for the past decade has been nothing short of shameful. Lest you think you are blameless, your willful ignorance of, as well as refusal to admit, the abysmal failure of your leaders, party, spokespersons, and Conservative media to improve the status of this country and its people - particularly Bush, Cheney, Palin, McCain, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News, etc. - is completely reprehensible, and gives you no standing to believe that you have something to crow about.
You don’t.
In fact, part and parcel of Obama’s inability to effectuate change has been due to the ”political noise” you either countenenced or participated in during the election campaign in the Fall of 2008 as a substitute for reasoned and measured dialogue about what was wrong with this country. Labeling him a Muslim – when nothing is further from the truth, and cheering on those who claimed that he was “palling around with terrorists“, willfully distracted the American public from what was really at stake for the future of our country. Many of you continued to increase the sound of that chorus to a deafening roar after he was elected with the most utter nonsense – first claiming he was not a citizen in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as well as charging that he is a Socialist, hellbent on destroying the foundations of this nation, when in fact his predecessors that you supported, as well as their corrupt political business cronies, had already virtually accomplished that objective.
In so much as you have fostered and perpetuated these opinions by either expressed belief or passive silence as to the truth, you are partially responsible for the demise of this republic. Your behavior is utterly Un-American. It is an absolute certainty that history will be far less kind to you than it will be to President Obama.
Shame on you.
And if you happen to choke to death on your teabags, oh well . . .
Inside the Mind of An Unapologetic Wall Street Investment Banker
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Cultural Issues, Economics, Ethics, Financial Crisis, How and Why We Get Screwed, Morality, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, financial industry on January 19th, 2010
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
– “Verbal” Kint, The Usual Suspects
Ok. So you may or may not have cared to see or read about the CEO’s of four Wall Street banks who testified this past week before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
However, wouldn’t you like to literally go inside the mind of a Wall Street investment banker and understand how they rationalize away any sense of responsibility for the untold consequences of the financial collapse? If you have a beating heart in your chest, and blood in your veins, these quotes from a Wall Street investment banker’s blog defending the apparent indifference by these men to the financial calamity that they were complicit in and primarily responsible for creating should send shivers up your spine:
Investment bankers “have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the whys and wherefores of the financial crisis, the proper size and role of banks and investment banks in the domestic economy, or the moral imperatives inherent in stewarding the financial plumbing under-girding the daily lives and livelihoods of six billion people . . . [i]nvestment bankers have almost no interest in why things are the way they are. Rather, they spend all their considerable intellectual and psychological resources on understanding how they can take advantage of the way things are.”
Moreover, “their obvious lack of intellectual curiosity about the sources of the crisis . . . [explains] their resistance to any major change in the way the industry or the markets are regulated . . . changing regulations will [not]necessarily make the industry less profitable . . . [since they] have well-justified confidence in their ability to turn new regulations to their advantage.”
He goes on to conclude, “Don’t look to investment bankers for answers on how we got here. We don’t know and we don’t care [emphasis added]. We take the world as we find it and try to make money.”
After reading this, there should not be a shadow of a doubt in any one’s mind - - they are Financial Terrorists.
These men simply have no souls.