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It Takes A Pillage

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 26, 2009 by admin in Politics

Monday, October 26th, 2009

The public has been slow to react to investment banks’ plundering of the economy, but some protests are finally taking shape in Chicago.

If you’re amongst the nation’s 14 million unemployed, maybe you should see if you can get a job delivering the plasma screen TV’s and cases of champagne that bailed out bankers will be buying to celebrate another year of million-dollar bonuses. Finally, even people like billionaire investor George Soros say you should be angry  about the obscene bonuses received by Wall Street. In spite of the fact that the White House “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg is imposing restrictions on certain companies’ compensation, it’s largely agreed that this is pointless, because what bank executives don’t get in salary and cash bonuses, they get through stock options and other benefits. So while New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo releases a study (see No Rhyme or Reason: The ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Bank Bonus Culture) that looks in detail at how bailout recipients Merrill and Citigroup both lost more than $27 billion in 2008 but still somehow justified paying nearly $9 billion in bonuses, and while Treasury Department watchdog Neil Barofsky continually points out the appalling misuse of bailout funds, 2009 bonuses at companies like Goldman Sachs will be double what they were in 2008. Call me naiive, but I remain astounded at the idea that one can run global economy into the ground and get a bonus for it. I was originally going to use the analogy of a man with gambling problem for today’s little rant, and thought it a little corny. But Nomi Prins – author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street – did just that in The Nation piece Meet the Hazzards. I’ve been prattling on about bailout injustice and public apathy for months, but it seems there’s finally some organized unrest in Chicago; it’ll be interesting to see if The Showdown in Chicago or the SEIU party crashers will get any attention.

Are We All Just Marks In The Hugest Hustle In History?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 18, 2009 by admin in Politics

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

I can’t help noticing that some people are getting richer while the rest of us struggle to get by.


Tim Geithner Demonstrates
Just How Much He Cares About
The Average Working Stiff

I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been conned in the biggest pigeon drop in history. While it’s nice to see the FBI go after a few greedy billionaires for insider trading, I’m tired of wealthy capitalist guys in suits that cost more than my housing for a year first telling us that we need a socialist banking system, then that they need 23 trillion of our imaginary future tax dollars to save capitalism, then that it’s none of our business where the money goes, even when we sue and win to find out, then that in spite of the fact that they deceived us at the outset that these same rich banker capitalist guys will be happy to loan the government banks money  to save them. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture? In a similar era in US history, Franklin D. Roosevelt said “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics“. This idea is highlighted by the points made in the NYT piece Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth, in which they quote Gary Richardson, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research as saying (in reference to the banks that have been bailed out): “we have just shown them that they can have the most frightening things happen to them, and we will throw trillions of dollars to protect them. I have big concerns about that.” So do I. How about you? Read the rest of this entry »

Hank Paulson Could Sell An Ice Cube To An Eskimo

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 16, 2009 by admin in Politics

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

And he sold Bush a bailout that Bush didn’t understand. But can he sell you a book?


So Long, And Thanks For All The Crocs!

I guess the fact that Hank Paulson is releasing the book On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System in 2010 should instill in us all a comforting feeling that the financial crisis is well behind us now. Well, it doesn’t. It does however, instill in some of us the feeling that Paulson is a greedy self-engrossed bastard that is so out of touch with the reality of those of us that are paying for his spectacular destruction of capitalism as we know it that he thinks we’d buy his book. Or be able to afford it, for that matter. It also – along with the impending release of Bush speechwriter Matthew Latimer’s Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor – makes for some hilarious pre-release reading. The only thing that might give you a better laugh than Latimer’s self-aggrandizing piece in GQ is Wonkette’s reaction to it. My favorite excerpt is when Wonkettes’s Juli Weiner takes Latimer’s passage “Paulson was supposed to be a nonideological, pragmatic, sensible type. He was bald with glasses and had a scratchy voice that sounded like he had a thousand-dollar bill caught in his throat” and translates it as “Paulson loved eating money. This is why the economy became so bad, because he ate all the money, we’d write. Because that’s what we were told.” Taking a more serious tone, the Vanity Fair piece Henry Paulson’s Longest Night rambles on in an almost surreal attempt to build compassion for Paulson by telling us what a tough job it was for him to hoodwink Washington with his buddy Bernanke and then sweep their frightening mess under the rug using the veil of secrecy provided by being in charge of the Federal Reserve. Probably the most gratifying thing in this piece is when the author describes Paulson throwing up in the next room while he talks about Nancy Pelosi. I can’t wait for more of the continuing flood of these opportunistic and treacherous “insider views”, but so far the most interesting thing I’ve learned from Latimer’s, Paulson’s and Tom Ridge’s tell-all sellouts is that Bush wears Crocs*. Read the rest of this entry »

Want To Know Where Your Bailout Dollars Are Going? Too Bad.

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on August 29, 2009 by admin in Politics

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

The Federal Reserve insists it’s none of your business which banks your tax dollars are bailing out.

Would you like to know which banks are getting the $23 Trillion bailouts you and your grandkids are paying for? TOO BAD. The Federal Reserve has insisted that Manhattan U.S. District Court Chief Judge Loretta Preska’s ruling in favor of Bloomberg News in a recent FOIA case would “would threaten the companies and the economy” adding that revealing the information “would stigmatize the banks and result in imminent competitive harm”. This is the second such case recently; Fox News lost one in July. Bet you didn’t know Fox cared so much about the common man, did you? Well, they apparently want to protect us from the evils of the BBC too. If you’ve been feeling better about the economy, we don’t want to dent your enthusiasm, but be aware that as of this writing, 81 more banks have failed this year, and from March to June the number of banks on the “Problem List” rose from 305 to 416. And all of this while banks repackage the same toxic investments that caused it all.

Bowling For Bailouts

[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 24, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story in theaters October 2, 2009

I’ve been a little hard on Michael Moore in the past, but in my heart of hearts I believe that, much like President Obama (who I think is a good man swimming in a shark tank), his heart is probably in the right place, regardless of where his ego is. My only real criticism of his films – that they seem more geared toward entertainment and profit than action – is pointless. It’s not his fault that Americans won’t watch a serious film about a serious topic, or that no approach seems to motivate them to act on the things that make them angry or unhappy. So I’m pretty excited to see what Moore has put together this time for Capitalism: A Love Story , due for an October 2, 2009 release. I’ve written plenty on topics like corporate vs individual rights, bailout apathy, fictitious capital, and revolution; so I have some hope that although no-one seems to mind that grotesquely wealthy Americans are getting wealthier while other Americans are going hungry and enjoying a 16.5% nationwide unemployment rate, maybe they’ll still want to learn a bit about it while munching on some popcorn. Read the rest of this entry »

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