Archive for category Government
Where Did All the Money Go For Iraq Reconstruction? Hint, Hint, Hint . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in Business and Money, Conservatives, Corruption, Dick Cheney on August 2nd, 2010
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) cannot account for $8.7 Billion of the $9.1 Billion allocated for the rebuilding of Iraq – that is 96% of the money.
96% of the money just vanished?
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) has just released a report outlining the extent of the problem, and made recommendations for a plan that will ensure future accountability of the expenditures. Think that hindsight might be a little short of 20/20 vision? How about $8.7 Billion U.S. taxpayer dollars short?
Hey, Mitch McConnell! Now there is some deficit-busting waste and fraud. How about going after Halliburton and it’s executives for that money? Oh, I almost forgot. You’re programmed to just say “No”.
What’s that old saying . . . follow the money? First, check with “Slick” Dick Cheney and KBR – the Halliburton subsidiary that was awarded the no-bid contract for reconstruction of Iraq. Somewhere deep in that corrupt wallet rife with fraud, they will be certain to find some of that cash. Oh, and by the way, you are not the only one who was curious how KBR just happened to get a no-bid contract for an unjustified war that Dick Cheney – former CEO for Hallburton – was instrumental in orchestrating.
Adding insult to injury, KBR hired 10,000 of its American workers through an offshore shell company that exists in a computer file on the 4th floor of a building in the Cayman Islands. That allowed KBR to avoid withholding millions of dollars in Federal Social Security and Medicare taxes. DoD discovered this in 2004, but said nothing, because it saved money on the reconstruction budget. And now DoD cannot even account for 96% of the money?
After all of these issues were brought out into the light of day, and investigations into widespread corruption started ramping-up, Halliburton immediately relocated its corporate headquarters to Dubai, ostensibly for business reasons. Talk about pouring salt into the wound.
Mission Accomplished?
At least for ”Slick” Dick and his Halliburton cronies, it was. Right up the U.S. taxpayers wahzoo – and he didn’t even have the common courtesy to kiss us on the back of the neck when he was done. No heart, no soul, no shame, and no accountability. Nothing but a big fat capital gain on your Halliburton stock.
All from war profiteering with the spilled blood of young American men and women on your hands.
There will be a special pit in Hell for you, Slick Dick.
Republican Mitch McConnell’s Twisted Logic on Taxes, Economics and Deficits
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, Budget, Budget & Deficit, Budget Deficit, Conservatives, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Logic & Reasoning, Politics, Republicans, Senate, economy on July 24th, 2010
PARALLEL UNIVERSE by Steve Hester
Remember how “vibrant” the economy was at the end of the Bush Era?
Recall that when Bush left office in January of 2009, the U.S. budget deficit was at an historical all-time high, roughly $1.3 Trillion .
So now Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell claims that the Bush Tax Cuts “increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.”
What an inexplicable disconnect between his statement and the foregoing facts regarding the economic collapse brought on by the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, and the deficits a majority of Americans agree that Bush hung around Obama’s neck; deficits that were unprecedented in relation to previous Administrations. It’s patently obvious that McConnell operates from a parallel universe where the laws of basic math and logic don’t apply.
As Ezra Klein of the Washington Post so kindly put it, “it’s enough to make you very, very sad.”
What’s even more unbelievable is how McConnell and the Republicans attempt to blister Obama and the Democrats on taxes, spending and deficits, all while ignoring the most blatant evidence of what the Republicans did after inheriting Clinton’s budget surplus. To describe this behavior in terms of an hypocrisy is an understatement.
So now the country seems inclined to put these guys back in power?
That is utterly terrifying.
NOTE: the sublime painting by Steve Hester is an original watercolor for sale at this link.
Come On In, the Water’s Nice and . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, BP oil spill, Conservatives, Energy, Environment, Government, Oil, Pollution, Sarah Palin on June 29th, 2010
WTF?!?
For all you people who supported Sarah Palin’s “Drill, Baby, Drill” policy, and are now living on ocean-front property along the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic Seaboard – what’s that old saying regarding the three things that determine the value of real estate?
“Location, Location and Location.”
Damn that nasty little Law of Unintended Consequences!?!
NOTE: the above graphic simulation (and it is graphic) projects where the Gulf Stream current will carry the oil slick over time based on an experimental placement of dye in the Gulf waters, measured over a two month period. [graphic courtesy of NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]
Wall Street’s Likely Strategy for Financial Reform
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, How and Why We Get Screwed, Wall Street, financial industry on June 21st, 2010
Citigroup – another Wall Street financial behemoth – has just released estimates regarding how hard financial reform might negatively effect Wall Street banks’ earnings.
I have news for Citigroup. One of your own – a Wall Street investment banker – seems to think differently.
If you recall back in January of this year, Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, and several of his fellow Wall Street CEO’s testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission regarding their complicity in the global financial crisis. First, Lloyd “Doing God’s Work” Blankfein had the audacity to claim that these events “will not happen again in my lifetime.”
So Lloyd, we can disregard the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund financial collapse in 1998 that almost resulted in a global economic meltdown – click here, here, here, or here. Or how about the dot.com bubble of 2000 – click here or here. And now this more recent Global Financial Crisis? Even though they all three occurred over the course of a mere 10 years?
Lloyd, are you saying you only have a couple of years to live? Has Hell been put on notice to reserve a room?
After that self-serving testimony, the closest any one of them came to admitting that they completely screwed-up the financial system was the statement of Morgan Stanley CEO, John Mack: “We did our own cooking and we choked on it.” Well not exactly John; you did your own cooking, the American public choked on it, all while you and Blankfein continue to dine on caviar, Oysters Rockefeller, Fillet Mignon and lobster.
So while doing the usual “deep research” into that day’s Congressional hearing, I stumbled upon an investment banker’s blog, and referenced some of his brash and flippant statements in this post - Inside the Mind of an Unapologetic Wall Street Investment Banker. Let’s revisit some of his comments:
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 that, you should know beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing will change after financial reform. Absolutely nothing. Except Wall Street investment bankers will become even richer, while they unapologetically watch the rest of us slowly go to Hell in a hand-basket.
If that is ”doing God’s work”, Hell is fine with me.
Fiscal Conservative Marco Rubio Points Fingers At Others, But Won’t Pay His Own Bills
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, Campaigns, Conservatives, Government, Politics, Republicans, Senate on June 18th, 2010
You know all those people who many Fiscal Conservatives have blamed for the global financial crisis because they took out mortgages and then did not pay for them? Or worse yet, they are still living in the house for free while refusing to pay the mortgage, and running up other personal debts on credit cards while the bank winds it’s way through an expensive and drawn out foreclosure proceeding?
Well let’s ask Marco Rubio - Florida’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, an avowed Fiscal Conservative, and political darling of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) what he thinks about all of this; because Rubio joined the ranks of such people, and stopped paying a mortgage he has on a house in Florida. Of course, when news of the pending foreclosure recently surfaced, the past-due mortgage payments were miraculously brought current – including payment of all penalties and the banks legal fees – and the house was put up for sale.
Maybe Rubio just happened to read the conservativefocus.com website’s post called ”Owners Stop Paying Mortgage . . And Stop Fretting About It? Here’s what a mortgage expert had to say on the issue:
“From the lenders’ standpoint, people who stay in their homes without paying the mortgage or actively trying to work out some other solution, like selling it, are “milking the process.”
Oh, but it doesn’t just end there. It also appears that Rubio likes to use his Florida Republican Party credit card for personal expenses – which is part of an IRS criminal probe into unlawful political expenditure reports filed by Florida Republicans. But of course, that particular little “misunderstanding” was also miraculously paid up once it was discovered by the IRS.
Furthermore, when he sets up Conservative political actions committees (PAC’s) to raise campaign money for other candidates, and then uses most of the money to pay his relatives as “employees” of the PAC’s, that can also be explained away as just paying employees to do their job. So was the PAC established primarily to raise campaign funds, or as a “slush fund” to help his family pay their bills? Wonder what the Federal Election Commission might have to say about that? And how quick will that money be paid back to political donors when it also becomes a problem?
If you are Marco Rubio, being a Fiscal Conservative means only being critical of the spending habits of President Obama and Democrats – and not yourself.
Is Today Thursday?
Posted by Lance Haley in BP oil spill, Congress, Energy, Environment, Government, House of Representatives, Oil, Pollution on June 17th, 2010
Seriously.
That was one of the questions posed to BP CEO Tony Hayward Thursday by a Congressman during the BP hearings before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This was following several hours of questioning by others, after it became obvious that Hayward was well-versed in giving emotionless, but polite, non-descript, evasive answers to every question. He simply answered every question without ever giving a clear answer.
Finally, in a show of exasperation, an unidentified Congressman apparently had had enough. He asked Hayward, “Is today Thursday?”
Hayward almost showed a flicker of emotion, and seemingly answered in a veiled defensive tone:
“Yes, it is Thursday.”
That is likely the only good answer Americans will ever get from BP.
Massive Document Spill in Washington by Goldman Sachs
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, House of Representatives, How and Why We Get Screwed, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, financial industry on June 17th, 2010
WHERE’S WALDO?
Lost in the news cycle that has been inundated with stories regarding the Gulf oil spill, there was another giant “spill” that is overwhelming Congressional and SEC watchdogs.
Goldman Sachs is playing a classic legal game of “Where’s Waldo” with the Congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission by first refusing requests for documents related to the commission’s inquiry, and then suddenly dumping (delivering) hundreds of millions of documents all at one time - a legal maneuver intended to obfuscate and hide the proverbial “smoking gun” documents that may be lurking beneath that mountain of paper.
You can be certain most of those documents that were delivered have nothing to do with the Congressional inquiry. Moreover, it will take years to scour through them to find the one’s that really matter - assuming they haven’t already been quietly deleted and/or shredded. By the time this thing is over – years from now - Goldman Sachs will have likely have made enough money to pay a “small fine”, and then buy the remaining portion of Congress that they and the rest of Corporate America don’t already own.
The message from Goldman Sachs: we worked diligently at providing the documentation that you have requested, and we can ensure you that we left nothing out (except maybe the sh!t that really matters). Oh, and good luck finding what you are looking for,
If this was the Pecora Commission, you could bet that Lloyd Blankfein and Company – you know, those guys on Wall Street that are doing “God’s work”- would be a lot more cooperative. Yet, Lloyd’s betting this dog ain’t got no teeth. I hate to admit it, but Blankfein is probably right.
So the question should not be ”Where’s Waldo”?
Americans should all be asking “Where’s Percora“?
JP Morgan Apologizes for Saying What They Think, So You Don’t Think About What They Said
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, economy, financial industry on May 5th, 2010
YOU CAN’T UNRING THE BELL . . .
A top executive and economic analyst at mega-bank JP Morgan Chase trashed U.S. senators in a company memo to the bank’s clients - stating that they showed “an unnerving ignorance of fundamental principles of market economics” regarding the Goldman Sachs hearings, and said “it’s time for the grownups to step in” regarding financial reform.
Interesting . . .
These same banks showed an unnerving ignorance of fundamental principles of market economics when coming to the taxpayers for bailouts; which suggests that it’s time for the grownups to step in, and teach them a lesson about what happens when you demonstrate an unnerving ignorance of fundamental principles of market economics – you lose the privilege to have such a powerful influence over OUR economy.
The grownups need to make TBTF (Too Big To Fail) = TSTM (Too Small To Matter) – break up these childish Big Banks.
P.S. After a spokesperson for JP Morgan Chase issued an apology for the memorandum – stating that it “does not reflect the views of our firm” – you could here the collective chant from JP Morgan headquarters as they covered their ears . . . “THE BELLS, THE BELLS, THE BELLS.”


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