Crony Capitalism and the History of Bailouts
In this revealing interview, David Stockman, former budget director and original Supply-Side proponent, tells of the 30-year history of how crony capitalism and the American finance industry has affected American politics.
Everyone Wants to Know: Where Does the Occupy Movement Go From Here?
Regarding the Occupy movement, the question on everybody’s mind seems to be: well, what the fuck now?
Or, more appropriately, “Where Does the Occupy Movement Go From Here?” I began writing an article on precisely this topic, working myself to the bone and pausing only to get dead stinking drunk for a couple weeks. Upon sobering up I started researching again and realized, to my embarrassment, that I had been beaten to the punch by practically every writer in the US (and some abroad) that follows the movement.
No, really! Type that question into a search engine and you’ll see this.
Well, it is an important question — this isn’t Tunisia or Egypt, one cannot count on the amount of popular support combined with near-suicidal rage necessary for a protest to topple a government. The US is a different animal and this is a different struggle. So what to do?
Miles Mogulescu, over at the…
The Gift That (We) Keep(s) on Giving: Through January 2013
“Demand a property tax on idle wealth. Demand it NOW.” —Liam McGonagle
“Seriously, do you expect a better opportunity to extract concessions from your enemies than when they lay begging, bleeding at your feet?” —Liam McGonagle
In case you were in the washroom when ‘Jersey Shore’ was interrupted with this late-breaking newstory: Ben Bernancke just committed the U.S. to provide the European Central Bank (”ECB”) with an unlimited line of credit.
That’s right, a brand new bailout. Structurally along the lines that Business Insider had warned us about in September, but much more ambitious; that article had postulated a trifling $1 trillion, not the bottomless pit we’re actually being presented with.
The basic deal is that we hand dollars over to the ECB in exchange for Euros, the value of which, has become highly dubious to say the least. The ECB will in turn invest those dollars in large corporate banks to bolster balance sheets they themselves…
Chris Hedges’ Speech in Front of Goldman Sachs Leads to Arrest
Photo Courtesy of Chris Hedges
Via Nation of Change:
Chris Hedges made this statement in New York City’s Zuccotti Park on Thursday morning during the People’s Hearing on Goldman Sachs, which he chaired with Dr. Cornel West. The activist and Truthdig columnist then joined a march of several hundred protesters to the nearby corporate headquarters of Goldman Sachs, where he was arrested with 16 others.
Goldman Sachs, which received more subsidies and bailout-related funds than any other investment bank because the Federal Reserve permitted it to become a bank holding company under its “emergency situation,” has used billions in taxpayer money to enrich itself and reward its top executives. It handed its senior employees a staggering $18 billion in 2009, $16 billion in 2010 and $10 billion in 2011 in mega-bonuses. This massive transfer of wealth upwards by the Bush and Obama administrations, now estimated at $13 trillion to $14 trillion, went into…
Great News, Everybody: A New (Secret) Bailout!
The Parable of the Blind. Pieter Bruegel (1568)
In Business Insider, scuttlebutt that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be softening up Obama, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for yet another round of bailouts for the incompetent multinational financial elites.
Awesome! I was afraid that the next round of bailouts would require “patriots” like representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to take to the floor begging again. I feel so relieved now, knowing that the whole thing can proceed quietly without anyone having to jeopardize their campaign funding.
But where do our other, prospective “leaders” stand on this topic? Hard to say. Irrelevance and opacity seem to be the primary tenets of the major candidates’ PR machines. Here’s what I mean.
Ron Paul’s heart may be in the right place regarding the need to end counterproductive wars and pointlessly intrusive social wedge issues, but his knack for failing to identify urgent priorities remains unequalled. Witness the most recent…
The Norway Massacre Conspiracy Theories Have Begun
Jonathan Kay writes in the National Post:
Well, that didn’t take long. Less than 24 hours after the Norway killings, Alex Jones’ massively-surfed Infowars site already is fronting with the theory that the tragedy was all part of a conspiracy by European elites to deflect populist disgust at bailouts:
The false flag attack in Norway arrives as populism grows in Germany, Europe’s reluctant paymaster for the contrived debt-based economic crisis. Establishment politicians in Germany have balked at a second bankster bailout … The EU and the European political establishment are beholden to the bankers and their “free market” — as in free to loot and plunder — neoliberal policies and have now pulled out all the stops in an effort to crush resistance to endless bailouts designed to crash local economies and destroy national sovereignty.
It is no mistake the corporate media is comparing Anders Behring Breivik to Timothy McVeigh. Hours after the terrorist…
Millions for Defense; Not One Cent for Tribute
Oh how the times have been a changin’ since Robert Goodloe Harper coined that gem in 1798. In the 21st century, apparently, patriotism means stealing hundreds of billions from the U.S. Treasury to bailout incompetent bankers, as “minute man” [1] Paul Ryan begged the House to do on September 29, 2008.
Okay, so as a nation we’re totally cool with recasting tribute to greasy financial fat cats as “investment” — even if it doesn’t exactly pay a huge return. [2]
But since “far left socialist” Barack Obama proposed cutting Social Security benefits during recent talks to increase the nation’s debt ceiling (to much Republican enthusiasm), making sure Granny gets her catfood money has also been redefined as “wanton profligacy”. Ah, sure, the ol’ gal only had another ten years left in her TOPS anyways, right?
America, you are a pack of perverts. [3]
IMF Prepares For “Threat To International Monetary System”
Tyler Durden writes on Zero Hedge:
There is a new threat to the international monetary system which means Europe May 2010 redux is imminent. US taxpayers: our condolences.
Back in April 2010, before Waddell and Reed sold a few shares of ES, effectively destroying the market on news that Europe was insolvent, we made the following observation: “The IMF has just announced that it is expanding its New Arrangement to Borrow (NAB) multilateral facility from its existing $50 billion by a whopping $500 billion (SDR333.5 billion), to $550 billion.” Little did we know that our conclusion “something big must be coming” would prove spot on just a month later after Greece, then Ireland, then Portugal, and soon Spain, Italy, Belgium, and pretty much all other European countries would topple like dominoes tethered together by a flawed monetary regime. Well, based on news from Dow Jones we can now safely predict the following: “something…
Activists Target Bank of America With Feb 26 ‘US Uncut’ Invasion
The “UK Uncut” anti-austerity activities have brought British banks and stores to a standstill as activists demand that the beneficiaries of government bailouts pay their share of taxes. The success of the actions has inspired American activists to stage their own “US Uncut” measures with the first, targeting Bank of America, set for February 26, 2011. The organizers are recommending that participants watch the British video on how to do a “Bail-In”:
The group explains why BoA is the first U.S. target:
Despite ruining the economy with their reckless greed, Bank of America has consistently avoided any form of accountability…
Danny Schechter on The Secret Wall Street Bailout
The U.S. doled out $12.3 trillion dollars to finance bailouts, a figure far higher than what was previously stated. Danny Schechter writes in Al Jazeera:
Go, Wall Street, Go!
Never mind the rise in unemployment and foreclosures. Never mind the folks waiting to know if they will get the benefits they need before they are cut off. Never mind the growing gap between rich and poor, and the rapid spread of poverty. (Did you know that inequality in the US is at the highest level of any industrialised country?)
Does any of this matter?
The idea of equality as a social goal is apparently passé. Christmas has a special meaning on Wall Street: It’s bonus time.
Just five too big to fail bankster companies have stashed $90 billion for payouts to prized employees. They know that the beat on The Street is fading, so it seems to be take the money and run time. Incidentally, that…
Happy Anniversary of Wall Street’s ‘Black Monday’: October 19, 1987!
Still on record as the largest percentage drop in the DOW in history. Gordon Gekko, care to comment?
Record High: 1 in 8 Americans Are Receiving Food Stamps
Examples of traditional "food stamps" that today are distributed on debit cards.
The Boston Globe via Bloomberg News reports:
The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday.
Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 19 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.9 percent from April, the US Department of Agriculture said in a statement on its website.
Participation has set records for 18 straight months.
Unemployment in July may have reached 9.6 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts in advance of the Aug. 6 release of last month’s rate. Unemployment was 9.5 percent in June, near levels last seen in 1983.
An average of 40.5 million people, more than an eighth of the population, will get food stamps each month in the year that began Oct. 1, according…
Bailed-Out Firms Using Bail-Out Funds to Lobby for More Government (i.e. Taxpayer) Money
The NY Times was reporting on this over a year ago and now we have a recent report from Fox News. As much I believe in “freedom of speech” the Supreme Court has already made it much easier for corporations to influence our government, and I definitely am NOT willing to pick up the tab for it … Stephen Clark of report from Fox News writes:
Several companies that escaped financial failure two years ago through massive taxpayer-funded bailouts are spending millions of dollars to make donations to political causes and even some candidates’ campaigns.
General Motors, Chrysler and Citigroup are just three of the biggest bailout recipients who have continued to remain politically active, through their political action committees, federal lobbying or direct donations to the pet projects of lawmakers.
The potential public relations disaster for firms spending big dollars on political causes and federal lobbying after being extended a taxpayer lifeline has led some,…
America’s Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists
How in the world is deregulatory kingpin Robert Rubin advising President Obama? Zach Carter writes on Alternet:
The financial crisis has unveiled a new set of public villains — corrupt corporate capitalists who leveraged their connections in government for their own personal profit. During the Clinton and Bush administrations, many of these schemers were worshiped as geniuses, heroes or icons of American progress. But today we know these opportunists for what they are: Deregulatory hacks hellbent on making a profit at any cost. Without further ado, here are the 10 most corrupt capitalists in the U.S. economy.
1. Robert Rubin: Where to start with a man like Robert Rubin? A Goldman Sachs chairman who wormed his way into the Treasury Secretary post under President Bill Clinton, Rubin presided over one of the most radical deregulatory eras in the history of finance. Rubin’s influence within the Democratic Party marked the final stage in the Democrats’ transformation from the concerned citizens who fought Wall Street and won during the 1930s to a coalition of Republican-lite financial elites.
Rubin’s most stunning deregulatory accomplishment in office was also his greatest act of corruption. Rubin helped repeal Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that banned economically essential banks from gambling with taxpayer money in the securities markets. In 1998, Citibank inked a merger with the Travelers Insurance group. The deal was illegal under Glass-Steagall, but with Rubin’s help, the law was repealed in 1999, and the Citi-Travelers merger approved, creating too-big-to-fail behemoth Citigroup.
Congress Shot Down, Last Night, The Most Important Wall Street Reform Ever Proposed
What is Congress getting right now? A Philosopher’s Stone? The Holy Grail? The Ark of the Covenant? Your ideas are quite welcome. Zach Carter writes on Alternet:
Late last night, the U.S. Senate rejected the single most important element of Wall Street reform by a vote of 33 to 61.
The SAFE Banking Act would have forced the break-up of the nation’s six largest banks, and dramatically reduced the political clout of America’s financial elite.
The 61 votes against the measure are votes in favor of Wall Street’s stranglehold on our economy.
No matter what else is ultimately enacted in the name of Wall Street reform, Congress has decided that it will not confront the single greatest problem in the U.S. economy: too big to fail.
On Wednesday, the Senate also voted down a $50 billion Wall Street tax that would have been used to fund the cost of shutting down a major failing bank.…
Wall Streeters’ Chain Email Reveals They’re Even Worse People Than We Thought
Image: ExiledOnline.com
Think that the financial crash has left investment banking hotshots humbler and wiser? Not likely. The National Review blog The Corner has a defiant email that has been circulating over the last couple days among discontented Wall Streeters. Seriously, these people are as douche-y as you imagined:
We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter.
We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.
Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God…
Goldman Sachs, In Their Own Words, Offered Investors A “Shitty Deal” (Video)
Goldman Sucks, I mean Sachs, this is priceless. Did you really have to destroy the U.S. economy to make C-SPAN this entertaining? Next time, instead of handing the potential investor a prospectus, why not just have them bend over? Via Countdown With Keith Olbermann:
How Frank Luntz Led Health Care ‘Reform’ Opposition
The reason I am sharing this is not because I think the so-called health care “reform” that passed actually qualified as such, but to point out one of the maestros (or Dark Lord of the Sith, depending on your take) behind the scenes of the opposition to such legislation.
Know who Frank Luntz is. He manages to influence the public discourse in the United States, on a regular basis:
P.S. It took the Democrats until April 15th to come up with this video? And you wonder why it took over a year to pass bullshit “reform”…
Lehman Channeled Risks [i.e. Investors' Money] Through ‘Alter Ego’ Firm
The top headline of the front page of the New York Times remains unaltered in my story headline, except for what the word “risk” really means. In my mind the sense of an “alter ego” sounds like a horror story, not a financial or economic one…
LOUISE STORY and ERIC DASH report in the New York Times:
In the years before its collapse, Lehman used a small company — its “alter ego,” in the words of a former Lehman trader — to shift investments off its books.
The firm, called Hudson Castle, played a crucial, behind-the-scenes role at Lehman, according to an internal Lehman document and interviews with former employees. The relationship raises new questions about the extent to which Lehman obscured its financial condition before it plunged into bankruptcy.
While Hudson Castle appeared to be an independent business, it was deeply entwined with Lehman. For years, its board was controlled by Lehman, which owned…
