Posts Tagged Big Business
Joe Lieberman Would Sell His Own Mother for Thirty Pieces of Silver
Posted by Lance Haley in Campaigns, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized on December 21st, 2009
“Listen, I’m a politician which means I’m a cheat and a liar. And when I’m not kissing babies, I’m stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.”
- ‘Dr. Jeffery Pelt, National Security Advisor, from the movie The Hunt for Red October
When I first heard last Spring that President Obama and the Senate Democratic Caucus were trying to court Senator Joe Lieberman in order to cobble together some super-majority in the Senate, I was beyond skeptical, and for good reasons. I had this very strong, visceral feeling this would come back and really bite them in the ass. OK, I admit I am wrong from time to time, but I was dead-on regarding this one . . .
This is one of the most irrational decisions the Democrats ever made, and it is now coming back to haunt them in a way that will likely be a defining moment in American political history regarding a political party having held both the Whitehouse and a majority in Congress, and thereafter, failing to pass a significant pieces of legislation - substantive Healthcare Reform - the one act that might have represented the first step in reigning in a disastrous financial time-bomb that will explode in the country’s face within this next decade. How or why did President Obama and the majority of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. Senate ever decide to trust Senator Joe Lieberman earlier this year after he stabbed them in the back in both the 2006 and 2008 elections, demonstrating beyond even a kernel of a doubt that he has no one’s interests at heart but his own? The Democrats gave away the farm and got nothing in return! This utterly defies logic and reason.
There is an old adage: “If you pick up a snake and it bites you, do not be surprised.”
This transparently egotistical, self-serving waste of human skin keeps his finger up in the air at all times to see which way the wind is blowing, while simultaneously burying his nose where the sun never shines – deep inside the rectum of the insurance industry’s corporate political donors - in order to ensure his re-election every six years. Moreover, his current antics of refusing to support any of the proposed compromises so as to effectually block any chance of substantive legislation is so calculated that it smacks of maniacal vindictiveness.
Joe Lieberman – you are just a shill for the insurance industry.
Judas could not hold a candle to your soul-less character.
Obama Meeting With Fat Cat Bankers Elicits Call for Guaranteed Loans?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Credit Card Industry, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, financial industry on December 16th, 2009
So President Obama chides the bankers on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night, referring to them as “fat cats”. On Monday morning he meets with them – at least the ones who showed up – to tell them they need to step-up their lending. What was their response?
Some of those in attendance said the government should “cut the red tape” in lending requirements for Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.
WTF?
We just gave these guys trillions of dollars interest-free in March of this year to lend back to Americans in order to prop up the economy. Then they hoard the money, investing it in everything from bonds (very conservative returns), to credit card holders (then turned around and raised interest rates to all-time highs), to high-risk derivatives – you know, those insane and arcane financial instruments that broke the casino the last go around. Thereafter, they paid themselves handsome bonuses for their genius (listen, give me a boatload of $$$ interest free and I can make a profit on it investing in high-grade bonds – the “spread” of 2% interest is a no-brainer; let’s see, 2% of $35 Billion – wow, nice freakin’ bonus, Lance; you are such a genius).
Now when pressed to lend the money, they have the audacity to suggest that the government-backed SBA loans are the way to go about fixing this mess. Let’s see. I will loan the money you just gave me interest free to small businesses. You guarantee 80% of the loan. I get the borrower to pledge his business as an asset to back up the remaining 20%, of course, making sure that the appraised fire-sale value of the “hard assets” – real estate, equipment, etc, far exceeds the other 20% of the total loan. Even if the deal goes South, the government pays me 80% of the money back (which they gave to me interest free, anyway), and I sell the business for 20 cents on the dollar and recover the other 20%.
What a deal! I take NO risk, and get all of the rewards. Isn’t Capitalism great?
Mr. President. Wake up!!! These guys are sandbagging us. Good will has left the building. The last remnants of Capitalism are gone, buried along side Adam Smith, who is rolling over in his grave as I speak.
P.S. For those not familiar with Adam Smith, he was the author of Wealth of Nations – the book written in 1776 where he first forwarded the economic theory of Capitalism.
Maybe Rome (America) Really is Burning
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Cultural Issues, Economics, Ethics, Financial Crisis, Government, Legal & Justice, Morality, Politics, Uncategorized, crime on December 8th, 2009
Do you think that maybe America shall reap what what she has sown?
This is not some biblical or religious condemnation nor commentary. It is obvious that the country is at a watershed moment in it’s history, and it does not bode well for the future. A speech given by a Senior FBI Special Agent in Charge John Gillies in Boca Raton, Florida noted that the seeds of widespread corruption in this society were sown by failures in personal ethics and integrity, and he further insinuates that greed is the driving force.
Agent Gilles said that cheating and corruption in it’s multitude of forms, whether by law enforcement and public officials, wealthy tax cheaters, sports stars like Tiger Woods, or business “fraudsters”, only undermines the moral fabric of our society, and is “the number one criminal threat” in the United States.
It is reasonable to argue that this social paradigm shift has occurred in an atmosphere of unrelenting hubris that this country has displayed in attempting to force the rest of the world to kneel to it’s whims and philosophies – particularly the notion that the United States is the standard-bearer of economic and moral values that all other nations and societies should emulate.
Nonetheless, some will continue to blame the lack of conservative values and the influence of liberalism as the root cause of this condition. If that is the case, then can anyone provide a logical explanation for the dominance of Conservatism from 2001 through 2008, and the concomitant rise in these problems? Special Agent Gilles noted that there was a 25% rise in corruption and fraud during the past five years – and that the scale of these crimes was unprecedented. Remember: Bush and the Conservatives had virtual control of the political structure throughout that period, and had gutted the regulatory and legal systems of the means to uncover these crimes.
Just food for thought.
Do Wall Street Vampires Really Need H1N1 Vaccinations?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Health & Diet, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Tea Party, Uncategorized, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on November 9th, 2009
It is a fair assumption that people without hearts and souls are immortal, and not subject to the vicissitudes of Mother Nature’s nasty flu viruses that she visits on us annually. So why does Wall Street get first crack at these vaccinations?
I guess women, children, and the elderly are dispensable in comparison. Now that is real evidence of rationing health care and Death Panels - - just not quite in the form that the Tea Baggers envisioned. And it only cost Wall Street $5 Billion in campaign contributions over the past decade to the Washington politicians in order to buy protection from their own malfeasance, and the random cruelty of Mother Nature.
As well as unjustifiably obscene bonuses, to wit.
What a bargain.
Small Business Finally Gets the Attention It Deserves
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on October 22nd, 2009
The sector of our economy that is treated like a step-child in comparison to Big Business is finally getting it’s just due. Small businesses in America generate over 65% of the jobs in an economy that has recently been hit with an unemployment rate of 10%. President Obama announced today that the bailout will be “refocused” on this segment of the U.S. economy.
One question Mr. President? What took you so long? Guess Tim Geithner and Larry Summers first had to take care of their old buddies at Goldman Sachs, et. al., just like Henry Paulson and Alan Greenspan did with the Bush Administration during the global economic collapse these greedy animals created. Meanwhile, the real heroes of the American economy who are still in business keep on shoveling coal down in the engine room, while those businesses that could not go on quietly close their doors in the vacuum of unavailable lending capital being horded by the rapacious bankers.
Makes one wonder how many of those unemployed people Goldman Sachs is going to hire after announcing this week its record-breaking $16 Billion employee compensation package for the first nine months of 2009? It is a safe bet that any money the Mammoth Financial Institutions are going to “put back into the economy” is going straight into the campaign coffers of the Democrats and Republicans who are currently sitting on the House and Senate sub-committees that will protect them from proposed regulatory legislation.
You can take that bet straight to the bank – just don’t deposit your winnings, because they will piss it all away.
Too bad we cannot “refocus” that money towards small businesses in America. The impact of even that ”modest” amount of capital directed towards a few thousand struggling small business would truly have a stimulative impact on our economy, and specifically abate the rising unemployment in this country.
But, remember.
“It’s all about Wall Street, Stupid.”
Greed is Good!
Posted by Lance Haley in Uncategorized on October 22nd, 2009
![Greed is Good [1]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Greed-is-Good-1-222x300.jpg "Greed is Good [1]")
Remember the mantra ”Greed is Good” ?
Thank you Brian Griffiths for resurrecting the ghost of Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) from the movie Wallstreet.
Mr. Griffiths is an international advisor for Goldman Sachs (at least he is as of this moment – tomorrow is another story). He spoke at an economic conference held in London yesterday where the topic of discussion was . . . oh this is really good . . .
“What is the place of morality in the marketplace?”
From there, it gets even more surreal.
Mr. Griffiths defended this weeks report coming out of Goldman Sachs that record compensation packages of $16.7 billion were being paid out to the company’s employees for the first nine months of 2009, an increase of 46 percent from a year earlier. If you think that obscene information just made your blood pressure go through the proverbial ceiling, his comment justifying these compensation figures will absolutely cause you to ”blow a gasket”.
“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”
Yes! That is how he rationalized this unconscionable decision from a financial institution that the U.S. taxpayer just bailed out.
But Mr. Griffiths is not done. He concedes that “[i]t was the failed moral compass of bankers which was primarily responsible for why we had this crisis. The question is: what can we do in the culture of institutions to make them behave in a more socially responsible way?”
Ahhhhhhh . . . Give them more money???? Yea, that’s the ticket! That should stop this ever-escalating climb into the stratosphere of economic insanity. Right?
But he ends on a very positive note, telling the audience that “To whom much is given much is expected,” he said. “There is a sense that if you make money you are expected to give.”
Yes. That’s what they will do. Engage in an ignoble and altruistic charitable act in order to wash away the sins of avarice, greed, and excess so that one can tolerate the inequality of his lifestyle compared to those less fortunate so as to inspire prosperity and opportunity in them, that they might become like him and do the same for others in a long cycle of never-ending prosperity and go on tolerating this inequitable way of living so that even more will prosper, all in the hopes that someday we will all be equally filthy rich and working ever harder each day to make more money to show the opportunities that await others who aspire to our level of greed and avarice.
I like it. I think I can handle the job. Let me check . . . no pulse, no heart, ice in my veins and in my glass of 20 year old scotch, no conscience, not a moral fiber in my body. Please hand me a cigar. When can I start?
Credit Card Companies Manifest Their Rapacious Greed Before Financial Reform Implemented
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Uncategorized, Wall Street on October 13th, 2009
Recall just recently when Ann Minch protested BoA’s credit card practices on youtube.com? Ms. Minch was merely requesting that Bank of America reverse their arbitrary increase of the interest rate on her credit card. When the bank refused, she “went viral” with her complaint on youtube.com, the world took notice, and the bank lowered her interest rate on the credit card.
How soon they forget.
You did not really think that the banks were suddenly going to “get religion” over one woman’s attempt to bring national attention to the unremitting greed of these financial behemoths, did you?
Now Congress has threatened to act on this even sooner in an effort to reign in the the banks’ rapacious greed (I guess re-enacting the old usury laws would cost the politicians way too much in campaign contributions from these banks – so this is their lame attempt at “protecting us”). In response, Chase Bank , Wells Fargo, and others are again quietly trying to screw as many customers as quickly as possible before their ability to extract every last dollar from us is finally limited to some degree through government regulation (ohhhhhh, that evil “R” word, again).
An Ohio couple is the lastest victim of this unconscionable business practice. Worse yet? Their credit card was issued through Chase Bank, a retail arm of J.P. Morgan Chase – one of the largest recipients of TARP (bailout) money. Want to add even more insult to injury? Now these mammoth financial giants raise your interests rates to squeeze more of your hard-earned money out of you, driving you ever closer to to the edge of bankruptcy, after you (the U.S. taxpayer) subsidized them about a year ago so they would not go bankrupt.
Is the utter irony of any of this lost on everyone?
FDA approval of Knee Device Reveals Problems with Political Pressure from Health Care Industry
Posted by Lance Haley in Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized on October 13th, 2009
Want to see just one egregious example of the incestuous relationship between health care and Washington? Read this story about how scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were placed under enormous pressure from their own agency after twice rejecting approval of ReGen Biologics’ Menaflex device.
Moreover, these lawmakers were not your run-of-the-mill Republican politicians that are normally associated with being “owned” by Big Business. Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) are two very powerful Liberal Democrats doing the bidding for a company in New Jersey that is part of the medical devices and equipment industry.
Ironically, after unprecedented pressure was brought to bear on the FDA in order to force it to reconsider the original denial of approval of the device, agency employees were told to “follow the science” in making their final determination – which can only leave one to conclude that this was code for “follow the political campaign money”, $26,000 worth of it to be exact.
Let’s face it. The FDA, the regulatory agency that was created in order to protect the health and welfare of the citizens of this nation from products and companies that would place them in danger, obviously serves at the will of the health care and pharmaceutical industries (there are numerous instances of this type of behavior at the FDA over the past 10 years or so). This proves the degree to which government is working against us, all in the name of money and profit. When this type of unwarranted and unlawful coercion exists at the highest level of government, the notion of deregulation is non-sensical.
While scores of people in this country scream about government takeovers and “Socialism”, corrupt business interests align themselves with politicians (by lining their pockets with money) in order to quietly convert this country into a nation devoted to Corporate Communism.
Same Old Wine in a Brand New Bottle . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Economics, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on October 6th, 2009
The tentacles of power reach as deeply into this Administration and Congress as they have with any of their predecessors (if you do not believe it, read this article).
Health Care Reform will be just another act of diluted legislative sausage-making, wherein they can all declare victory while their constituents are left wondering why there was so much fuss over so little substantive action. The polarized distinctions between Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, are just fabricated drama for the Beltway politicos, P.R. hacks, media, and the likes of Limbaugh and Beck, all who line their already deep pockets by stirring more fear and loathing in an easily manipulated public.
These Foxes are not the real threat to the occupants of the chicken coop. To the contrary. The chickens are so busy pecking at the ground looking for a kernel of corn or two to feed their hunger for a little truth, while simultaneously focusing on these untrustworthy creatures, that they forgot it is the master that will likely be dining again on them tonite.
If you keep your eye on the foxes, you will never see the freshly- sharpened axe that is about to fall on your neck.
Congress Ignores the Financial Trevails of Small Business
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on October 1st, 2009
As was noted in yesterday’s blog, Wall Street Boys collect fat bonuses for moving money around the world at the speed of light, creating nothing of real value, while still continuing to intentionally deceive the government and shareholders about their business transactions with no substantive consequences. Even Federal District Court Judge Jed A. Rakoff obviously wondered why the SEC was not investigating and prosecuting apparent criminally fraudulent behavior? A $33 million fine is meaningless for Bank of America – especially if it’s executives who committed the fraud are not going to pay for it, either financially or by criminal punishment (as usual, the shareholders, bank customers, and tax payers are all going to “take it in the shorts” on this one).
Now today it is reported that the major financial credit rating agencies – Standard and Poor, Moody’s, etc. – are still intentionally inflating the ratings of the securities of the Wall Street firms who pay them fees. Anyone familiar with the term “Conflict of Interest”? While testifying yesterday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, former Moody’s managing director, Eric Kolchinsky, asserted that his firm was criminally deceiving investors. This was one of the principle underlying causes of last years financial meltdown, and yet they are they are doing it again?
MEMO TO: Attorney General Eric Holder . . .
Where is the deterrence?!?!?
Meanwhile, honest, hardworking small business people try to fund retirement plans for themselves and their employees through the trusting hands of financial advisers, insurance companies, and former IRS agents. Thanks to Congress, and even the IRS in some cases, that trust was sorely misplaced by a number of small business owners. The mere fact that a business or individual may have inadvertantly failed to file one form, or even IF the existence of the retirement plan was reported in a business tax return, but not a personal return - any violation triggers enormous penalties and fines. Some of these honest business people even relied upon IRS “determination letters” that tacitly give initial approval to their plans.
Guess What? WRONG! According to a complex set of tax rules and formulas established by Congress, if the IRS later determines that the plan was not in compliance, you are subject to penalties and fines for any number of “violations”. One would think it reasonable that if you’re intentions are honest, that your reliance on expertise is reasonably placed, and there is obviously no intention to commit fraud, you will not be driven to bankruptcy. You would be WRONG AGAIN!
What is most galling is the fact that the fines and penalties are not even commensurate with the violations. It’s like giving the Death Penalty for speeding on the highway. Congress takes the view that Wall Street is TBTF (To Big To Fail) even if they fraudulently screw things up, but your small business can be allowed to go bankrupt if you make an honest mistake.
The powerful Wall Street firms and financial institutions, their executive management, their rating agencies, and the minions who do their bidding (lawyers, lobbyists and politicians) suffer insignificant consequences for their criminally fraudulent behavior, primarily by pouring millions of dollars into the political campaigns of the most powerful Democrats and Republicans sitting on Congressional Committees overseeing Banking, Finance and Business Regulation.
Meanwhile small businesses, which generate approximately 50% of the business income in this country, are treated like step-children.