Improving Workplace Collaboration Requires A Dog NPR Planet Money
Cattle ‘cloned from dead animals’ BBC
Drug firms hiding negative research are unfit to experiment on people Ben Goldacre, Guardian
Accountabilitiness Eli, Firedoglake
Clawbacks from economists? Michael Perelman, EconoSpeak
Manhattan Luxury Condos Embrace FHA in ‘Game Changer’ Bloomberg (hat tip MLouis)
FDIC, SEC Announce Open-Door Rulemaking For Wall Street Reform Law BLT
Real Reason for Ousting H.P.’s Chief Joe Nocera, New York Times
‘Hindenburg Omen’ foreshadows imminent FTSE crisis, warns BGC’s David Buik Telegraph and Hindenburg Omen’ Senses Stock Gloom Wall Street Journal. Extreme views are popular these days, and Japan’s equity markets in their lost now two decades have shown peppy rallies and dramatic declines.
Random Shots Claus Vistesen, Credit Writedowns
Europe’s ‘periphery’ woes return to foreground Financial Times
The Power Trip Wall Street Journal
Antidote du jour:
16 comments
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Re Clawbacks from Economists:
Needless to say I agree completely that most economists should be chain-ganged to break rocks for the rest of their lives to restitute just a tiny fraction of what they helped steal and destroy.
But of course the idea applies far more profoundly to the finance sector in general. One of the most disgusting insults of all this has been how these criminals always justified their obscene extractions by claiming to create such vast “value” way beyond what they extracted.
So by that logic, now that they’ve destroyed all the value they allegedly created, shouldn’t they have to give back everything they took out, and not be allowed to take out one cent more?
Yet instead they stepped up their looting following their intentional destruction of the economy and triggering of a Depression. This is the worst moral atrocity.
We the people own the banks, just as we own every cent these villains possess. Every last cent must be restituted. Of course that would still cover only a miniscule fraction of what they stole and destroyed. So the rocks would have to suffice.
A more useful response is to divert the “economists” resource flow into other channels. Starve’em out.
The problem is nearly all people still believe that Federal Reserve money is real wealth. And of the small fraction that think otherwise the majority of these are gold & silver bugs wearing rotor top beanie caps.
People will never rid themselves of these drones until they stop regarding money as true wealth. And here’s where the wheat gets separated from the chaff. Does one wish to free themselves from servitude to the Ben Bernankes, George Soros and Rahm Emanuels of the world? Or are the complaints just disguising desires to have their offices for yourself?
Freedom is already possible for yourself and your family. If you really want it. I won’t help anyone with the latter.
Instead of fretting about scarce (and fairly useless) metals like gold people would be better off considering dirt common metals like aluminum.
http://www.openfarmtech.org/index.php/Main_Page
Marcin Jakubowski, Ph.d of Physics, is the main leader. Disclaimer since they solicit donations. I have no connection to Marcin’s group other than a deep philosophical & spiritual compatibility. His group is already bending metal for Open Source brick making machines and tractors.
Marcin has all the main outlines correct.
@SEC FDIC Announce Open Door Rulemaking
Hmmm.
“. . . any interested party can request a meeting with FDIC officials or staff by submitting a form that will be available via the FDIC’s webpage.”
That seems like an invitation. Maybe Yves you can get in on the action there and knock some heads. You and Tom Adams can get in there and throw them up against the wall so their toes are touching the ground, like in the movies.
I bet if attempter or i-on-the-ball or LeAnne or somebody like me tried, it wouldn’t go over very well. I’d lose my temper before I even started talking.
And then I’d say something like “How many financial parasite whores do you guys think it takes to totally destroy what’s left of America?” or “What can you do to claw back every last god-damn dollar these thieves have stolen and get them barred from the securities business for life?”
They’d look at me like I was a nutjob. And they’d just tell me quietly that I’m going off topic.
That’s why I’m not fit to meet with the SEC or the FDIC in any formal setting. Maybe just beers at some dive bar in southeast DC, where ranting is commonplace and tempers are easily lost.
I’m with you craazy, I read the article as an invitation too, although maybe a grudging one, since it only made the Sat. editions.
If this a sincere move (and I’m pretty sure Bair is sincere (and maybe a little scared of getting what she wished for)on this) the policy does provide an opportunity for an additional interest group (i.e serious financial bloggers and their constuents)to weigh in.
For example, say Yves drafts a proposal, posts it on NC, viewers comment, comments are reviewed and the post is revised/reposted to include additional points/ suggestions culled from comments, as a petition. NC can collect signatures (and allow for additional comments) and submit it as public comment from the NC readership. Could it hurt to have Yves(+X) submit public comments, since I assume Yves (and other bloggers)already intend to participate.
Or you could draft one of your classics and invite us to sign on and submit it.
Ben Goldacre’s piece on the drug companies is strong stuff -like his excellent book “Bad Science”. Unfortunately, large chunks of Science seem to be going Bad.
Note his commenter Sadoldfart who said “I agree 100% Big Pharma behaviour is disgraceful.
However I wish that the likes of George Monbiot would explain to me why this is disgraceful and Prof Jones and the climatologists aren’t.”
Or note this recent story from the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/education/14harvard.html
Re: Manhattan Luxury Condos
While the prospect of helping the rich and near-rich buy hyperinflated properties while the working class is moved out to Queens or western New Jersey seems bureaucrats gone stupid, it’s actually well in line with current management practice.
Over the last twenty years or so, one consistent piece of wisdom put forth in business schools and management books is the importance of getting rid of unprofitable customers and concentrating on the profitable. Or, more bluntly, the bigger customers over the smaller.
Human values, special services, discounts, special deals for the big. For the small, “Kick them to the curb!” Remember when banks went to tellers for accounts above, say, $50,000 and those below had to line up for the ATM machine? This, in theory, lowers costs for the same revenue.
Once again government is run like a business and the result appalls everyone.
On the other hand, Manhattan real estate has suffered from speculation far more than other parts of the country. But then, it always has. The flippers are numerous, hyperactive, and well-funded. This keeps that game going strong, but austerity is only for elderly widows in the Midwest.
“On the other hand, Manhattan real estate has suffered from speculation far more than other parts of the country.”
I think most people familiar with the Manhattan real estate market would disagree. The price percentage increase in Manhattan real estate and post-crash fall has been much less dramatic than in other parts of the country where speculation via ponzi finance was readily available. The main factor here being a lack of easy ponzi finance (option ARM, no money down, cheap FHA finance etc.) and a high barrier to entry for would-be speculators. I’m not sure how the market is now post crash but back in 2005 when the whole world was mortgage crazy it was tough to get a bank to back a mortgage in Manhattan with any less than 20 to 25% down. Why? If you didn’t have 25% to put down some other rich guy did. As a result no one bought who: 1.) Didn’t have deep pockets, 2.) wasn’t making a long term investment or looking for a place to call home, and 3.)was interested in ponzi finance schemes because why tie up $250,000 of hard cash (not much in Manhattan below .5 mil especially in those years) for a few years to reap a 8-10% profit when you could put very little or no money down in Florida or Arizona and see the value of your property double in a few years time.
Lot’s of over heated real estate markets in the boom years offered a big return on little money, Manhattan not so much.
Hence the reason Manhattan was spared the worst excesses of mortgage mania.
Circulation Recap / Tuning the Vortex
Behavior comes around full circle; an empire is no exception, like tumblers falling into place when the correct combination is entered, and the improbable becomes the probable. Time on the circle is relative, relativity is the only thing holding the spring to the wall, knowledge is the mass, and event expectation is the damper on the wheels. Reality is always at the precipice, balanced by adaptation, by the many in the beginning, and by the few at the end. The problem is the solution.
The gap grows between those who prepare accordingly and those who clutch the black hole, under the mistaken assumption that the empire is a life preserver. Choose/design the: frame of reference / algorithm / filter / religion.
Here’s one:
And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse. But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats. And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them.
Code is to a circuit as religion is to science.
The little duck is taking a bath without a rubber duckie to play with?
That’s cruel!
Where is his mama duck?
Cattle ‘cloned from dead animals?’
This feels like the time when they thought Radium was great, making watches glow in the dark.
Talk about science ‘unfit to experiment on people.’
Our happiness is also being experimented on by QE or QN as well. No one knows if it will work or not. Many don’t think so. Shouldn’t the FDA require the Fed to prove that QE/QN is safe before forcing it down on us?
The clones were probably produced from tissue collected before the source animal was killed.
It’s really a non-story.
I wonder if human sperm banks purge stocks of sperm from donors who have died.
The Hindenberg Omen, is it full of hot air or should we take it more seriously?
Hot air is harmless, but Wall Street is seemingly buoyed by hydrogen or something more volatile.
ZeroHedge has a bit more specific info on the esoteric chartology of the omen here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/hindenburg-omen-here
Also from ZeroHedge: “Goldman Warns Of A ‘Meaningful Decline’ In Stocks [next week]”. When those, who in some degree control the market, see a cliff ahead, it might mean really something. Of course that assumes Goldman would not deliberately mislead anyone.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/charting-next-weeks-bearish-action-goldman-warns-meaningful-decline-stocks
Yves, why do you not include a contact page on your website? Is that on purpose to avoid being emailed by visitors?
Here, here, Brett. I’ve been looking for the same. Here’s a wonderful article I think the community would like:
http://www.counterpunch.com/martin08132010.html
A promise of transparency from FDIC and SEC? How reassuring.
How does one assess adherence to an elusive principle such as “transparency”, anyway?).