I know this matters more to me than to you, but ECONNED is two years old today (well it does have a new afterword as of the paperback release late last year).
Apps for Apes: Orangutans using iPads to paint and video chat with other apes Sideshow (hat tip reader Aquifer)
Mad Hattery! “Bringing you the very best in royal hats” (erm, hat tip Lambert courtesy DC Blogger)
On Facebook, No Nipples Allowed. (But Crushed Limbs are OK.) BigThink (hat tip reader Aquifer)
THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IS SEARCHING YOUR FACEBOOK AND TWITTER FOR THESE WORDS AnimalNewYork (hat tip reader furzy mouse)
Knowledge Nature (reader Carlos)
If You Feel O.K., Maybe You Are O.K. New York Times. Hahaha, one of my pet peeves!
N.J. legislator proposes bill requiring genetic testing for all newborns, parents to verify paternity NJ (hat tip reader Ethan). I knew they’d come up with an excuse for universal genetic testing.
Euro and Yen: Looking for a Black Cat in a Dark Room Credit Writedowns
The global zombie shuffles on MacroBusiness
Southern discomfort fuels German unease Financial Times
Eurozone delays Athens rescue funds Financial Times
Southern European Money Migrating North to Safety Der Spiegel (hat tip reader May S)
Is Supreme General of All Televisions Barry McCaffrey hinting at a military coup? Lambert Strether
Blown Away: How the U.S. Fanned the Flames in Afghanistan TomDispatch
Israeli Central Bank to Use Its Reserves to Buy US Equities Jesse
The Billionaires Behind Newt’s ‘American Solutions For Winning The Future’ ThinkProgress
MARK AMES 1, ANDREW BREITBART 0: EXILED EDITOR DOES DIRTY CHICKEN DANCE ON BREITBART’S GRAVE eXiled. This is bound to offend some readers, so if you have tender sensibilities, you’ve been warned.
Silicon Valley Homeless Feel The Grip Of Recession’s Long Reach Huffington Post
Getting Randomly Picked To Make Half-Court Shots Now Best Way To Earn Living Onion
Obama considered letting middle-class Bush tax cuts expire Daily Beast.
The Supreme Court’s corporate monsters–if money buys them “free speech” rights, can it help them avoid giving others human rights? Angry Bear (hat tip reader Aquifer). The double taxation argument is ridiculous. People who pay income and sales taxes are double taxed too, but is anybody concerned about that?
Dynamics of US slowdown MacroBusiness
ART CASHIN: We May Have Just Witnessed The Presence Of Artificial Intelligence In The Stock Market Clusterstock (hat tip furzy mouse). If this is how Skynet awakens, I’m not impressed.
ISDA: Suckers Wanted Barry Ritholtz. Hahaha, maybe ISDA will succeed where Dodd Frank feared to tread: kill the CDS market. The FT agrees: Fears for CDS market after Greek decision. And even though everyone was afraid of blowing up protection sellers, what happens to the parties who thought they were hedged and aren’t? Remember what Richard Bookstaber pointed out about tightly-coupled systems: measures intended to reduce risks often have the reverse effect. But we still have what looks to be an undeniable credit event next week, so stay tuned to see what ISDA does.
James Koutoulas: MF Global Financial Collapse And the Shadow Banking System Jesse. Have you notice that RT has hot women who ask geeky questions? And ask them in caffeinated up dumb blonde intonations? Stylistically, this is intriguing.
Open Models (part 2) mathbabe
The role of derivatives in the 2008 crisis Carolyn Sissoko (hat tip Richard Smith). This confirms why I don’t read Felix as much as I once did. He’s said that he doesn’t care about being right (!) and the result is he’s too inclined to say flip things which don’t have factual grounding.
When your tool fails your stock drops 35 percent John Hempton. This probably belongs on a list of “Greatest Post Headlines of All Time.”
Antidote du jour (hat tip Lambert courtesy SF):
And this is not exactly an antidote, but speaking of cats and shell games (hat tip Joe Costello)
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The number of people living in cars in Palo Alto and Menlo Park certainly has increased over the last years. I saw an older couple once living in a minivan in the Safeway parking lot. But otherwise it is just a glance while driving by old cars with covered windows on Alma late at night. Who are they? I am afraid the article on the Silicon Valley homeless is not answering it. The techies portrayed are flashy but hardly representative of the population. A grain of salt too. And then there is east of 101, Redwood city etc. Little Michoacan next to Atherton. Where Are Their Stories?
I remember during the dot com bubble reading about how rents were so high working people would ride the buses all night for a place to sleep. Silicon Valley….
“Little Michoacan next to Atherton.”
Near the Ferrari Maserati dealership – interesting juxtaposition.
Meant to put this here (ignore the double post below):
It’s been a long recession.
All that hardship suffered went for naught as the broken wealth-distribution-channel is not fixed. And now, we are asked to shove more wealth down the rigged wealth-distribution channel where the flow of wealth is directed to certain parts of the town while routes to other needy areas are clogged.
Guy begging for gas at the gas station last night, he had an older RV that he lives in and ran out of fuel, I filled his 5 gal can cost over $20 plus my own bill for $70 a expensive trip to the gas station.
Dear Ron;
At least you were willing to help him. We were in a somewhat similar situation once, and some Boyscouts, (the real ones, uniforms and all,) chipped in to help us out. I’ve never forgotten the bashfulness of those lads when we tried to thank them.
There’s a guy in the San Antonio shopping center 24 Hour Fitness whom I’m pretty certain lives there – whenever I go in he’s either sitting at one of the machines, doing nothing or moving very slowly, or extensively sterilizing a machine before and after using it.
Cool. Do you say hi to him? Buy him an energy drink?
You’re not paying attention. There’s a lot of single guys (and a few women) who somehow got themselves small shops but who never made enough money to get an apartment. So they live in the back of their (tiny) stores, without kitchens or showers, for years on end. It’s illegal in most communities and as they all rent, they’re constantly at risk of their landlords finding and throwing them out. Back in the mid 1990’s I was one of them, in Ventura, CA, on Fir Street.
I eventually left for greener pastures elsewhere. Or they were green. If I have to pack up and live in a vehicle, I’d get a clapped out school bus. They can be had cheap.
One cent of private or non-profit money going into a buidling project with its California mandated low income units and anyone can qualify, the son of a WWII veteran who has paid millions of dollars in taxes or a recently arrived immigrant. That’s only fair isn’t it?
“Everything is beautiful, the kitchen, it’s beautiful,” said Navarro of his family’s three-bedroom apartment in a new $13 million affordable housing complex called Drake’s Way. It’s a step up for the family of six from Sonora, Mexico who were previously in close quarters in a two-bedroom apartment on Alameda del Prado in Novato.
Navarro, 42, a handyman, and Ainterestail Rabago, 40, a house cleaner, and their neighbors got the keys Wednesday to their new home at 20 Drake’s Way, the newest affordable housing community developed by EAH Housing. The couple and their four children, ages 16, 13, 10 and 4, now have some room to spread out in the 24-unit apartment complex on a Larkspur hilltop with sweeping views of Mount Tamalpais and the San Francisco Bay.
http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_14060066
Thanks for the link, it’s nice to see at least some people getting their universal human right to housing as required by UDHR Article 25(1). It’s a real shame that American patriot chumps don’t know their rights, but everybody else in the world does, so the USA won’t drag down the civilized world as it subsides into pathetic 3rd-world misery.
Sorry for any disrespect, but the guy spending 24 hours on a workout machine at 24 hour fitness because he has no place better to go is just too much. My take is he does not feel like getting physical so he’d rather just hang out, look at the women, try to make himself feel better by being in a gym and wipe off some sweat in the mean time.
I’ve known 24 hour fitness salespeople and that guy does not help their commissions when selling memberships. He either pays or he’s out and if he’s an eyesore, he’s paying.
ISDA: Suckers Wanted Barry Ritholtz “And even though everyone was afraid of blowing up protection sellers, what happens to the parties who thought they were hedged and aren’t?”
I couldn’t figure out if some of these transactions truly made economic sense. My own theory is that they don’t, and never did. They only continue because governments want them to continue, probably with the idea that they provide low interest rates (lower than the true rate of default justifies).
Lincoln once asked if you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have…
fd, to gain insight into how the protection racket works, head over to ZH for blogs and Comments especially. The commentariat has keen insights into how the racket works.
Not to beat a dead horse…well, OK, to beat a dead horse:
Paul Griffiths, global head of fixed income at Aberdeen Asset Managers, says: “If CDS has been used to measure the perceived creditworthiness of a country or as a bet on the direction on the market, it still has value. But if it has been used to hedge against risk, then its intrinsic value has been hurt because you are not necessarily going to get back the amount of money you had hoped you would.”
“used to measure the perceived creditworthiness of a country or as a bet on the direction on the market it still has value”
Why?
Aren’t there all sorts of metrics to judge credit worthiness other than CDS’s??? It seems to me the CDS market, if it has done anything at all (other than hide risk and generate fees for finanacial institutions) has actually delayed the Greece denouement…
Other than CDS, the main market-based indicator of creditworthiness is the spread of a country’s sovereign bond yield over that of a ‘least-risky’ reference country, such as the spread of Portuguese yields over those of German bunds.
If you own Portuguese bonds and want to hedge against the risk of default, CDS is probably the most convenient way to do so. CDS wouldn’t have a such bad rep if buyers were required to actually own the underlying bonds (i.e., to have an insurable interest), and if CDS were traded transparently through a clearing house rather than over the counter.
But then, the ISDA is run by banksters (Goldman Sachs et al), so sleaze goes with the territory.
CDS was just a scam on the Elites–“Buy this insurance, you can’t lose!” (wink, wink)
Now when it is time to pay out those premiums, because they fucked up the entire gobal economy, the insurance company minions do what they always do—“It was an Act of God, I tellz ya! Look at the fine print! We’re not liable. Besides, it wasn’t a “credit event” cuz we sez so.”
Scam Artists poisoning the well from which they drink, not too smart…I’d watch my back, if I were one of them. It might be nice to sit back and watch the Elites start eating their own. It’s about time.
thank you all for the insights: ohmyheck and JimHaygood and LeonovaBalletRusse
very helpful.
fd, the CDS don’t hedge, less yet insure, against risk “in reality” — but hey, if the Mafia guy is selling you “protection” on your store/house/life, you WILL buy it from him, won’t you?
No link to yesterday’s news conference about Obama’s altered birth certificate? Open his posted birth certificate in Adobe Illustrator and it has numerous layers. In other words, it was computer-generated, not just a simple scan of an original paper document. YouTube video showing the layers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQAqvtXenKg
Note how in Item no. 22, date of filing, the third digit in the year “19_1” is missing in one layer, and is filled in by another layer.
One possibility is that Obama’s hippie mother (never mind his ‘papa was a rolling stone’ dad) didn’t get around to filing for a birth certificate until 1971, when he needed it to enter school in Hawaii. Nothing wrong or illegal about that. But evidently to avoid raising questions about some such minor irregularity, someone has gone to elaborate lengths to create a multi-layered, altered document.
Under harsh new identity-theft legislation, the alteration of Obama’s birth certificate is probably a felony.
Explained away in the National Review
J, no surprise here. The National Review Agency is filled with good soldiers for the .01%, true to the mission of their founder, the God Soldier Buckley.
From the National Review: UPDATE: I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home.
Sorry, Charlie. That ain’t how it works. An image is scanned into some format or other (.tif, .gif, .jpg, etc.), is imported into a desktop program (Pagemaker 7, etc.) and then is exported as a pdf. That’s the shortest route. No layers.
The alternative, that we’re OCR’ing a document which we will then reconvert back into its original document, is laughable. We’re going to do this for what reason, exactly? Oh, right. To extract the printed data for use elsewhere. Problem is, the birth certificate has already been created by use of a database, so there is no reason for the State of Hawaii to recreate what it already has.
This raises some delicious questions. Ignore that I’m a loon and read on:
The Obama birth certificate is in a particular format. Was that the format that was used in 1961? YES or NO?
If NO, then what was the original form of that document? Anybody got an original 1961 Hawaiian birth certificate we can see? Most of birth certificates, from most other states, were Black and White forms, i.e., they looked like blueprints, only in black instead of white.
Normally when you ask for the Black and White, you get a certified copy of the ORIGINAL, whatever it looks like. Note the originals existed in two versions: The COMPLETE or LONG FORM, with lots and lots of detail, and the STANDARD, or SHORT FORM, which has only the baby on it. (You get the short form unless you insist on the long one.) So far as I am aware, these two forms were the standard for virtually all states. I confess I do not know Hawaii specifically.
Since Obama doesn’t have that, that means at some point Hawaii digitized their existing records. That’s going to be a lot of work. You go year by year by year, box by box, dusting them off, scanning every one of them.
What year did this take place? What years were scanned/digitized in this manner?
Unless the records were digitized, there is no way the current Obama birth certificate could have been produced.
You want proof? Any 50 year old Hawaiian citizen can give you proof: All they need do is to apply for a copy of their birth certificate, and see what comes in the mail. Any takers?
Here: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=hawaiian%20birth%20certificates&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1024&bih=655&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=XuRQT6mjHKb40gG2xKi8DQ
are a page of Hawaiian birth certificates. We may presume that most of them were recently obtained. Very few of them look like the President’s.
PS. Forgot that I’m using old HP scanners. (Because they’re not toys, because they work.) A modern scanner will scan directly to a pdf. Again: No need for any other program, and so, no layers.
I don’t find the National Review’s author’s explanation for the layers particularly plausible (in fact, the contrary). However, optical character recognition software, depending upon the particular application used, can cause this layering effect to occur in its attempt to distinguish text from the competing portions of the scanned image. Before you can attempt to declare that the layers definitively imply the use of photoshop, you need to understand how ALL the software modules involved work and are interacting, not just pieces of it. In this case, you had scanning software, OCR, pdf conversion, optimizing software, printing function software, etc. resulting in a final product. Just as one can be an excellent driver without fulling understanding how an engine works, one can be very skilled at using software without the sophisticated understanding that comes from somebody who has been involved in similar software and hardware design. In the end, I would defer to the engineering and/or programming at the scanner/printer manufacturer used to scan/print the copy for a definitive statement on any conclusions that could be made re: layering. Chances are good that the forgery claims are a wild good chase.
FYI: I have more than my share of issues with Obama, and don’t believe we need to prove lack of citizenship to justify showing him the door….. assuming a replacement shows up. And I’m a former software snob, stint with Lexmark. :=)
Um… if fraudulent intent existed, wouldnt it be simpler to just submit a paper copy of the pdf? just say’in…
I’m still more interested in knowing how Obama’s handlers got the time-travel technology to go back and place the birth announcements in the Hawaii newspapers.
Presumably one of the sixteen American Intelligence Agencies has the task of finding out what might be used to blackmail a President? If so, which is it that’ll know the truth in this matter? And what does it use that knowledge for?
(P.S. I saw the reference to 16 agencies recently – can it be true? How on earth can you need 16?)
Oh, on time-travellers – presumably there’s an argument that O’s family wished at the time to make a misleading claim about some aspect of his birth?
It’s very easy to manipulate these records. The U.S. has a massive secret intelligence service and they create fake identities and alter identities all the time.
Plus, Obama’s whole family was in the CIA, so if anyone is going to have doctored records its Obama.
So where does the copy of the newspaper come from? Does someone have an original copy? Was this digitized and scan into an online record? When?
Sheesh. Digitized records. Just like LPS and MERS, and we know what that led to. See under Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
The demand for a genuine birth certificate assumes that there are, in fact, genuine birth certificates. Just shoot me now, please.
Hello Time Travellers, H.G. Wells is not my forte. What we have here is a man who needed a new ID – a fake ID – who chanced upon an Hawaiian birth and claimed it for his own.
What surprised me about this flap is that I had presumed that “someone” bribed some government flunky to get a certified copy of a genuine birth record. Now it looks as if “someone” simply chanced upon the published birth announcement and used the information contained therein that to photoshop an Hawaiian birth certificate which that said “someone” has been passing off as his own.
Next thing you know, some bright dweeb will take Obama’s childhood photos and find the layers in them. Any takers? I’d love to hear how that will be explained.
So far as those 16 intelligence agencies are concerned, I presume if I can figure out a fake, they can, too. Why did they not speak up? Because it’s not their job to speak up! The job of a secret agency is to stay secret (ref: Pogo). If someone is posing as someone else, that’s his business. Of course, if he has a big swearing in for some important job using a name that’s not his own, well, they might have to redo that in private using the real name, so the real person can be held accountable, if need be.
This is a bright crowd. Where can I find the video of Obama’s second oath of office? There’s nothing to see here, right?
Hey, you’ve stated a plausible theory. Interesting. So where did Obama come from then?
I don’t think the second oath is significant, unless I’m missing something. Why wouldn’t he just lie and take the oath? Does he think it’s magic or something and he will be protected if he doesn’t take an oath?
Dave and WWM, there is a video on YouTube of Obama taking the second Oath of Office, with commentary.
LOL! A birther! Great you have lost all credibility for now and forever. IDIOT!
I would have once had a similar reaction.
But the truly idiotic thing the American people have done is to so blindly trust their politicians and their media.
We have been lied to on a massive scale.
Aha. Of course.
Obama’s mother worked for the CIA. So did his mother’s parents–his grandparents. In fact, Obama’s father was brought to this country to study from Kenya as part of a CIA program.
So I always thought the birth certificate issue was a fake issue to distract people from this greater truth.
But it wouldn’t surprise me. Once I would have mocked these claims and now I’m going to look into it.
There is a picture of Obama’s grandfather, a humble furniture salesman (that was his cover), meeting Obama Sr. at the airport the night he arrived in Hawaii.
What would a furniture salesmen be doing greeting the Kenyan delegates of a CIA program at the airport?
http://www.chrisroubis.com/category/barack-obama-a-cia-creation/
Scroll down a few pictures.
WWM, link: CIA – “Pro-communists who were elected to the AAAPc’s steering committee at the March 1961 Cairo conference … are identified in the report as Abdoulaye DIALLO, AAPC Secretary General, of Senegal…Modibo DIALLO of Mali”
x-ref: Amadou DIALLOU and NYC police incident; Nafissatou DIALLO, alleged victim of rape by Dominique Strauss Kahn.
The plot thickens, the scope is wide.
WWM, CIA & Suharto vs. Sukarno xref: “Suharto cronies Mochtar and James RIADY of LIPPO GROUP” and “$1 million contribution” to Clinton presidential campaign. Also, Timothy Geithner’s father, “Peter Geithner” a “Ford Foundation” grant-selector” who provided funds for Barack Obama’s mother.
xref. recent address by Lord James of Blackheath to House of Lords re money scandal, Greenspan, Timothy Geithner’s signature.
Oh, what a tangled web.
Birthers in this comment section and 9/11 truthers in the other. Just great.
My thoughts exactly.
Seventh Seal territory. Signs and portents.
Yves, congratulations on the book anniversary. Reading Econned is what brought me to the blog looking for more.
“I know this matters more to me than to you”, is a statement that’s rather too strongly worded, I think.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/excellus_reports_223_million_p.html
The profit was about five times bigger than the $44.5 million profit Excellus made in 2010. The company generated revenue of $5.7 billion in 2011 and gained 85,000 new members.
David Klein, the Rochester-based company’s chief executive officer, took home $5.2 million in 2011, up from $1.9 million in 2010. The company said Klein’s compensation last year included a $2.8 million payment for completion of a long-term retention agreement.
NYS AG’s office-
“why don’t you call the US attorney’s office”
Not, these *Not for profits* need to be BUSTED, again. Someone needs to get to the original IRS definition of “non-profit” to comprehend the qualifications for this status, apart from “religious” justification.
Here’s “How It Works” in fact, most simplified: INCOME: $1MM [million]; PAYROLL+BENEFITS: $600M [thousand]; EXPENSES: $400M; PROFIT=0.
This is a totally INSANE model of a “non-profit” institution/business. As in the past, the .01% Executives EAT most of the profit via “salary+benefits+expenses”, leaving the “trickle down” .99% with the dregs. BUST these FRAUDS.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/annual_report_shows_how_much_e.html
Not for profiteers…
Here’s a list of the employees who made more than $200,000 in 2011:
David H. Klein, CEO, $5.2 million
Emil D. Duda, senior executive vice president, $1.6 million
Christopher C. Booth, president and chief operating officer, $1.2 million
Virginia Parysek, senior vice president, $579,964
Stephen Sloan, senior vice president, $540,401
William Simmons, senior vice president, $490,411
Martin Lustick, senior vice president, $480,297
Paul T. Eisenstat, senior vice president, $450,082
Anthony F. Tardugno, senior vice president, $432,822
Barry Thornton, senior vice president, $430,340
David Mack, senior vice president, $412,793
James Reed, senior vice president, $403,805
Kevin McGurgan, regional president, $389,423
Robert H. Thompson, vice president, $365,739
Eve M. Van de Wal, regional president, $361,141
Arthur G. Wingerter, president, Univera, $357,991
Karen M. Doyle, senior vice president, $355,337
Arthur P. Vercillo, regional president, $352,438
Keith A. Volkmar, senior vice president, $347,066
Geoffrey E. Taylor, senior vice president, $346,560
Michael Kenney, chief underwriter, $336,282
Sheila Schroer, chief actuary, $334,701
Todd A. Muscatello, vice president, $331,763
Denise T. Dragoone, senior vice president, $326,967
Jamie E. Kerr, vice president, $310,902
Frank J. Dubeck, vice president, $310,122
James D. Spencer, senior vice president, $307,127
Joel Owerbach, chief pharmacy officer, $303,936
Marybeth O’Connor, regional vice president, $298,099
Margaret M. Cassady, senior deputy general counsel, $282,878
Marybeth K. McCall, vice president, $281,799
Deborah Piccirilli-Schauseil, corporate vice president, $281,200
Patricia A. Bomba, vice president, $279,100
David G. Sanderson, senior vice president, $277,133
Edward Sassaman, associate medical director, $270,410
Richard P. Vienne Jr., vice president, $267,948
Benjamin Hawley, senior vice president, $264,834
Carl M. Devore, associate medical director, $259,746
Carolyn B. Frank, vice president, $255,962
Marie Philippe, corporate vice president, $255,815
Susan Eliaszewskyj, corporate vice president, $255,552
Dorothy A. Coleman, executive vice president, $255,111
Christine Bergeman, vice president, $250,929
William J. Youngman, vice president, $249,289
Tove L. Stigum, vice president, $236,970
Pamela Pawenski, regional vice president, $235,916
Steven D. Taylor, vice president, $232,986
Philip Puchalski, corporate vice president, $230,825
Antonio Vitagliano, vice president, $228,312
John W. Griffith, vice president, $227,746
Timothy J. Quinlivan, senior deputy general counsel, $224,043
Kathleen A. Horn, vice president, $224,022
James C. Haefner, corporate vice president, $221,588
Donna F. McManmon, corporate vice president, $220,731
Robert J. Holzhauer, vice president, $218,478
Melissa N. Gardner, vice president, $218,232
Robert N. Mercury, chief financial officer, $215,651
Steve C. Dina, associate medical director, $214,742
Michael S. Burke, vice president, $212,540
Mindy B. Gray, vice president, $209,368
John P. Kinney III, director actuarial $207,912
John J. McGuinness, transitional leader, $205,406
Mark Harris, vice president, $203,283
Richard P. Nangreave, vice president, $203,211
Patricia Ciciarelli, vice president, $202,090
Lisa M. Meyers-Alessi, vice president, $201,173
Not, great list, and you can bet the “not for profit” DNA cops big bucks from generation to generation: they’re “experts” at this racket. Moreover, see how many of them belong to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates, how many belong to Milner Round Table groups across the land. BUST them.
How will printing money do for these guys?
US DOJ, Anti trust division
“that’s a tax question”
Treasury Inspector General
Waited on hold for 45 minutes, their “hotline”, was dumped into a voicemail box after that.
Not, Gee, Klein must be extra smart or extra talented, huh?
US T IG’s office
“Why don’t you call the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners”
I thought that maybe the IRS/treasury would be interested in knowing about a nonprofit being so profitable….
“Well, there are 3 IG’s”
And this one insn’t interested?
“why don’t you call 1800 1040
Thanks….
Has the Fed just put an end to Too Big to Fail?
http://financeaddict.com/2012/03/the-end-of-too-big-to-fail/
FA, it sounds good. But…what’s the catch?
If it represents a turning point which will lead to diversification of the banking industry. Bernanke said he would not let another big bank go down on his watch. Maybe the Fed is just making sure there are no more near-term collapses, and the hideous bigs will be back.
Speaking of RT, on most nights, The Alyona Show has one or two interesting guests on. YouTube has a RSS feed of the show split into its individual segments, which makes it easy to browse for the interesting guests. You can view the RSS feed in Firefox, IE, or Safari; but Chrome will just display a wall of text.
NL, who in the Old Guard is behind the Buddy Roehmer PUTSCH? Must not lose sight of the fact that Ultraconservative Authoritarian *Christians* of *The Family* and such are BIG in Louisiana, not to mention the CLAUSEN KLAN occult influence out of Anglo-German Louisiana.
The above is a question arising from text at The Alyona Show link.
Dear LBR;
I seem to recall another Roehm involved in an earlier Putsch. That one failed, and was followed up with a perfectly “legitimate” ascent to power, via the ballot box. So, who is Uncle Buddy fronting for? Does he know what’s in store for him when the backstory comes front and centre? “Louisianna Log Cabin Republican Leaders Found Fricasseed In Bayouside Retreat!” Times Picayune- 30/06/13.
In the video, Buddy Roemer calls out Obama for attending a $35,000/ticket fund-raiser hosted by Goldman Sachs. As Chris Hedges said last fall:
Roemer isn’t just criticizing Wall Street. He’s criticizing the whole corrupt political process, where Obama courts powerful Wall Street firms for his campaign cash. “The big checks stamp on speech.” Just as you can’t vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, you also can’t run against the interests of Goldman Sachs.
NL, Buddy Roehmer is an Old Guard Louisiana Politician. Somebody has been trying to PUSH him as Republican Presidential Candidate in 2012. Who?
I don’t know a whole lot about Roehmer but his big message is the need to get money out of politics and he will only accept small donations. I also recall reading in one of Black’s articles that he was one of the handful of Democrats in Congress during the S&L crisis that was honest. I could be wrong, and I don’t how fit for the job he otherwise is, but I think he may be a candidate with, gasp, some ethics and morals.
NC (and others) have talked about Obama’s connection tor Wall Steet in some detail. Without that detail, a video like “Obama’s Wall Street” just seems like a hit piece. And the counter to is all too easy:
* the “revolving door” has been around long before Obama
* Wall Steet people love their country too
* Why do you hate successful people? (The Romney defense)
J, re: “Why do you hate successful people?” cut off same bolt as:
“Our enemies/Terrists hate our freedom, our successful way of life.”
>> Without that detail, a video like “Obama’s Wall Street” just seems like a hit piece.
A hit piece that resonates…better than most hit pieces.
w, of course it’s a Hit Piece; I thought it was a TV ad.
IMO it needs more substance to be effective. Or maybe to be one in a series of such ads.
Effective: Romney as a flip-flopper, takin different positions at different times of his career and to different audiences.
Effective: Romney as the 1%: he talks about bringing jobs back contrashted with his layoff history or talking about how he loves to lay people off (although that comment was taken out of context)
What would be (more) effective against Obama is to highlight his failure to deliver “change you can believe in.” Compare what he has done for the banks against what he has done for average people. A sort of “are you better off today than 4 years ago” thing.
Sure, the Wall Streeets in his administration should be mentioned – but tie them to Wall-Street/corporate friendly policies such as:
1) extending the Bush tax cuts;
2) the ineffecitveness of a stimulous devised by Obama’s Wall Street advisors (Summers and Geithner) resulting in millions of people on food stamps and of millions”discouraged” job seekers; and
3)coddling the banks via bailouts, backdoor bailouts, and lax enforcement (HAMP abuses, robo-signing).
Note: This is just a quick list.)
Oh come on! that guy has no idea how to work the Shell game.
That Shell Game Cat
Don’t take no sh*t
Don’t mess with it.
Finance Addict -thank you for that link.
” ,,,JOHN REED: Yes. In other words, I went with Sandy [Sanford Weill] to call on Chairman Greenspan. We told him we were contemplating this merger. But that it would require that the Fed would be prepared to grant us permission. And we were assured that they would.”
This says it all -down with fiduciary responsibility and the people’s confidence in the integrity of their money, up with unlimited leverage and securities law arbitrage with the City of London, down with the safety of the people’s currency, down with banker fiduciary investments, their rights to legal representation and home ownership rights. Down with everything. Down with their families, their communities, their jobs, their children’s welfare and future -everything.
One guy Sanford Weill. And his name is never mentioned. How come? When it is mentioned its a whisper.
And Greenspan didn’t know what he was doing and has apologized for his misguided theories -and he’s still taken seriously. He and his wife Andrea Mitchell. And the wife of the president Bill Clinton at the time, Hillary, in charge of foreign affairs now, maybe rewarded with head of the World Bank. Wow! What a country. And it matters whether a Repub or Dem gets into office?
Thanks to Sandford Weill’s paid lackeys: Robert Rubin for the Democrats and ex-President Gerald Ford for the Republican side (who gets a free pass because ‘he couldn’t think and chew gum at the same time’), Phil Graham and spouse -and others not so visible.
The kitty antedote was wonderful this morning. Really funny. Kitty in the end shows her disguest at the stupidity of the game.
LeeAnne, Oh, but the .01% like U.S. Presidential puppets who can’t think and chew gum at the same time, or who have some other major defect. Hear Dr. John Coleman on the RIIA selection of James Earl Carter as our Puppet President, on http://www.youtube.com: “The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman” (1776isBACK on Jan 8, 2011).
YVES, Congratulations! “ECONNED” is only two years old, and since then you’ve set in motion an irreversible revolution with Naked Capitalism. You have done something radically new, totally C21; you have transcended the “old time religion” of conventional top-down anarchy.
disgust
Hire that cat to run the NY Fed! He’d uncover more crooks than Geithner.
wunsacon – hell, yes! Isn’t a cat running for Senate in the Northeast?
Hank the Cat is running for the Senate in VA. I suppose that makes more sense than Caligula making his horse Consul, cats being cats.
Typical of animal-chauvinists: It’s time for a dove to win the Noble Peace Prize!
Plant activist: Remember flower power? It’s global plant power now. I nominate the olive branch for the next Noble Peace Prize. But I will never nominate any minerals for that prize though. Too lowly.
Truly, I tell you, there is a conspiracy against vegetables, except couch potatoes, maybe.
I think it’s time to put a Titan Arum in the city hall.
more kitty games
for ipad owners
http://youtu.be/XK2dwTVi-aQ
When pets start to buy iPads en masse, Apple could be worth more than $1 trillon.
Of course, the first step is to emancipate our pets, to pay them more than room and board. Then the purchasing power will come.
Craazyman, are we looking at that forever elusive ten-bagger here?
always. I got stopped out of AAPL, as usual, before it shot up.
If this isn’t a link tomorrow, then I don’t know what qualifies as a link around here. How much Europe financial news can you take in one lifetime, I’ve reached my limit.
http://gma.yahoo.com/grandmother-55-audition-dallas-cowboys-cheerleaders-224714416–abc-news.html
It’s tough.
People are desperate for someone or something to save them.
That’s when it’s most dangerous.
The only thing constant is change. Change is constant, natural, invisible. It grinds slow, like water wearing away a rock. It impacts more and longer than when change is abrupt or visible. It impacts even more and longer than when it’s not natural.
We live in a precarious world and people are yearning for change that is merely visible, abrupt or artificial.
The Greek CDSs will still probably pay out. This decision was based only on the subordination of the debt. It would be hard to calculate the losses on the subordination without incurring the actual losses.
Once the Greek government forces the subordinated bondholders to take the 70% loss… well… then… that’s hard not to call it a loss.
Since this has been a train wreck in slow motion, I can’t imagine that default and CDS payout will be a surprise to anyone. IMHO, it’ll be a non-event.
The black swan will be the Greece election, Greece abandoning imposed austarity, Leaving the Euro, or a failure of the new treaty to pass. All unlikely, but possible.
BofS, of course it’s a loss, but is it *technically* a “default?” So much riding on the answer to that one. ZH commenters are swift to the con.
RE: Ames/Breitbart
“This is bound to offend some readers, so if you have tender sensibilities, you’ve been warned.”
Not a question of tender sensibilities as much as basic human decency.
FrankB, so true. That correction to perception is necessary and just.
Aww, look, Frank C- is trying to make us feel bad cuz Breitbart turned his pointy gynecomastia tits up from the sheer abject humiliation of getting annihilated by a leftist who’s hopelessly smarter than he is, just because the leftist didn’t take pity on his weak preening sissy ass like he expected. Now this sniveling pantywaist wants decency, Mommy, Mommy, look what they did to me, waah, waah.
Breitbart’s timely demise does rekindle some hope in divine justice, even some sort of damnation, long-lasting if not eternal. Everyone seems to assume saintly character in death, but Black Bart made vermin look truly noble. Ames spiteful eulogy might have been too kind.
It’s been a long recession.
All that hardship suffered went for naught as the broken wealth-distribution-channel is not fixed. And now, we are asked to shove more wealth down the rigged wealth-distribution channel where the flow of wealth is directed to certain parts of the town while routes to other needy areas are clogged.
The Billionaires behind Newt’s …
Somehow, it seems it’s always the billionaires on the right versus the billionaires on the left, with the little guys (and gals) caught in the middle, some excitable ones even rush to join the opposing billionaires.
Speaking of Euclidean geometry as prof. Hudson was mentioning it the other day, a Non-Euclidean political map for non-flat-earthers: To reach left, you go right. To reach right, you go left. Just ask Columbus or Magellan. Among the most extreme right, you will find leftists. And among the most extreme left, you will find rightists.
DHS is looking for the word pirates? Must be fun on Talk like a pirate day.
gael – “FREE TRADE is PIRACY….What happened was that this dastardly Club of Rome had sent their emissaries to the United States to deliberately destroy our steel plants. And they did it by opening the doors to so-called FREE TRADE. And everybody who signed the NAFTA Treaty, everybody who signs the GATT Treaty when it passes, is a TRAITOR and a SEDITIONER.” (38:14)
http://www.youtube.com —
“The Committee of 300 by Dr John Coleman” (1776isBACK on Jan 8, 2011).
Dr. Coleman, formerly of MI6, reminds us that “FREE TRADE” is the term used for de facto PIRACY, especially by the British East India Company/”British” Empire during their Opium Wars against China [like “Poppy” Bush Dynasty’s NWO Wars against the U.S.A. in C20-21].
So, “FREE TRADE” is CODE for “THE SHOCK DOCTRINE” for Global Lebensraum for the .01% DNA Global Reich eternally, and for their .99% Agents from era to era. Got it?
The Shell Game Cat did pretty good. Two for three!
Better than me. I lost 40 bucks –one deuce at a time*– playing the shells in the Boston Common back in ’92.
Never forget it. Stupidest bets I ever made.
*That’s oh for twenty, for those doing the math at home. The guy was either a lightning master, or he was cheatin.’
Or, it’s all the same thing for dipshits dumb enough to play the shell game.
Hey Yves! Congrats on Two Years!
Also, check this out from Matt Taibbi via DDay:
http://fthebanks.org/matt-taibbi-on-bank-of-america/
Would love to know what you think of his assertions about BofA
PQS, thanks. Matt Taibbi has found the GOLDEN MEAN for conjoining Left and Right in America. He delivered his published piece at Occupy to prove it. This is a work of genius, and it is JUST. This should go viral. Thank you, Matt Taibbi for persevering until you perfected your purpose!
YVES, what say you?
Yes, I love Taibbi. Am totally unoffended by his liberal use of profanity, and indeed find it amusing. (But then, I’ve been 15+ years in commercial consstruction. If there were no profanity, we would be unable to work, IMO.)
I wonder about how finance types can be motivated by the total abstractions that they wage war in; how zeros and commas activate the brain dopamine machinery. Here’s a data point:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,788462,00.html
(boingboing headlined this as a result about “rogue traders” but it appears that the researchers used the ordinary kind.)
Mel, good link: “Share Traders More Reckless than Psychopaths, Study Shows” – DUH! Why else do the CEO’s hire them?
So, “SNAKES IN SUITS” only begins to tell the story.
Possible data point (poster boy?) for the Wall Street Pathology Profile (Morgan Stanley co-head of North American fixed-income charged with stabbing and racially slurring livery cabby who drove him from manhattan to Darien CT over “fee dispute”)
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/banker_stabbed_cabby_then_bragged_UBEuOYc33iUKlVQaa8jMZI.
Incident occurred 12/22/11. It’s now a court case in Stamford CT.
MsG, now why does this remind me of Tom Wolfe’s “A MAN IN FULL”?
I mean, this is beyond “BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES”.
Leonova, apt association to a character almost quaint by comparison.
Congratulations on your second anniversary Yves. I’m going to go for interlibrary loan when the snow melts! I feel like I have already learned half of what your book will tell me just because your blog is so informative.
Seems like two months ago, not two years. Flies time when you’re having fun! Oh, wait…
Also thanks for the off topic things like today’s “Knowledge” by John Frizell. That really isn’t fiction. It isn’t science fiction either. I’ll settle on poetry. Way good.
Despite their nuclear weapons and all the latest military toys for their armed forces, the Israelis have for decades beaten their chest about their fear of being driven into the sea by Arab hordes. Now it looks like the Israeli Central Bank is going to plant the bomb that will blow up the state that was never seriously threatened by the armies of its neighbors. There is great irony in that as well as incipient tragedy.
RE: DHS, Facebook and Twitter — The Onion got it wrong then? Zuckerberg is not CIA but DHS?
RE: Genetic testing of newborns, pushed from New Jersey: with Christy in charge, should we be surprised?
YVES, re: “Euro and Yen” link: seems related to *finessing the carry trade via CDS*–proposed by some at ZH.
YVES, re: “global zombie shuffles on” link: I saw an ad for “Bullion Money” in gold and silver with a dragon on each piece. How does this relate to:
1) Euro to Yen to Euro Carry Trade finesses?
2) “Gold bond” roots of the scandal exposed by Lord James in House of Lords?
3) JPM “pass through” of MF Global customer funds through London and “missing” gold or “paper gold” — maybe to the Dragon Family as a matter of “Life or Death”?
YVES, re: “Southern European Money Migrating North” — isn’t this “Capital Flight” TYPICAL for “Free Trade” insiders working together in a timely way in collusion for mutual profit? Imagine how much GREATER the “hidden” profits (skim/vig] are today via HFT of CDS?
Russia Today is copying the Bloomberg Television spokesmodels, who copied it from the money honeys.
Its all part of the downward spiral of dumbness.
Happy Birthday to Econned.
Tho’ I have to give credit to Ms. Lyster. She’s scorching hot — but she seems intelligent, well-informed, articulate and channels the lunacy of it all (based on the 3 shows I watched on the internet. I’m too lazy to watch it regularly).
I wonder if she actually rides the bus or steps into a limo at the end of the day. It seems like she should ride the bus, but I’d bet on the limo. Her populist shtick could be nothing but theater for the proletariat.
But I don’t understand how somebody from Russia can be so fluent in English, with an American accent, and know so much about our country like she does. Is she another Anna Chapman? God I hope not. If there’s more deception going on here I’ll be stunned. :)
craazyman, maybe she’s just a CIA asset gifted in languages, born of CIA assets living in Russia during the Cold War, doing her thing du jour in USA!USA!
But what’s up the green hiliter?
So, they pumped the price of gas, dumped credit on California, every government vehicle in the fleet is out spying, and the feminists are all out dragging their eunuchs around as the example to be followed. What did you expect?
Sail against the headwind of evolution, not the empire. By the time they pay, plan, and do all the other stupid crap they do, you will have changed directions many times, effectively disappearing again.
We are all stupid in that we choose to ignore data in order to remain within an event horizon. The trick is to apply imagination effectively before you go in and be disciplined in following minimum customs as required, and always, always use your exit, regardless.
“Mansion servant enslaved by uber-rich New York family for nearly six years”
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/mansion-servant-enslaved-uber-rich-york-family-six-201707220.html
Ludd, the son gets revenge against his “mother” from hell.
wrt Yves’ subhead on Russia Today’s MF Global piece:
“…hot women who ask geeky questions…”
That really works, at least for many of us.
(And if they had written ECONNED, that would be even better.)
Happy B-day Econned!
Wow, that was a fast two years for ECONned, and it is certainly standing the test of time. (Now, please, please, please would the publisher put out an Audible version…!)
On another note, the guardian.uk has a damn clever ad:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2012/feb/29/open-journalism-three-little-pigs-advert?INTCMP=ILCNETIMG12382I
Did the Three Little Pigs really kill the Big Bad Wolf to claim insurance in order to pay off their House of Sticks? Did the BBW have asthma that impaired his huffing and puffing? How many other reader-commenters log on to decry the Big Banks who are driving the 3 Piggies to such acts of despair? Where, really, is the crime in this story?
MF Global Story: “Have you notice that RT has hot women who ask geeky questions? And ask them in caffeinated up dumb blonde intonations? Stylistically, this is intriguing.”
Thank you! It’s like, fer sure, Valley Girl intonations and, like baby talk innuendo. I’m waiting for, gag me, the Brat Pack to show up with, like raybans and colas, just to, gross, make it official.
“And even though everyone was afraid of blowing up protection sellers, what happens to the parties who thought they were hedged and aren’t?”
Can’t these people be held accountable the capitalist way, a.k.a. crash and burn? Did I force them to buy? Or Sell? Any of you readers is guilty of coercion toward these poor souls?
No, right?
Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. A fake!
Critical questions. Since when is a 50-70% haircut on Greek bonds not a default? Since the ISDA, owned by the world banksters, is terrified that a millisecond after a default is trigged, the resulting massive, overleveraged avalanche will take them all out, including criminal reserve banks, in an instant. So they are desperate to redefine “default” in Orwellain terms, and are colluding with central banks to continue screwing investors and taxpayers. But of course who will by their toxic bonds in the future?
A pair of articles at The Market Oracle, ask similar questions, as does Z Hedge.
“The Money Masters Are Living in Fear”
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article33140.html
“How Greece Could Take Down Wall Street”
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article33311.html
DT, thanks for the great links. Clearly, we are not living in “normal times” – so why should we be acting as if we were?
If nationalizing the banks was truly the right move in 2008, why would it not be today? Why doesn’t every MC turn coat and nationalize the banks, spinning off the CDS lots into separate companies that should be allowed to go bankrupt?
I mean, since Big Banking is all about Lebensraum, property, then why can’t We the People take the Big Banks over by right of eminent domain (paying “owners” the peanuts they might deserve for the properties), then just ship the “toxic CDS piles” to undisclosed locations, saving the best for ourselves as a sovereign nation? Wouldn’t such as Dick Durbin be happy to give a little “PAYBACK” to the “OWNERS” of Congress with this ACT by We the People?
Again, these are not “normal times.” Can’t We the People ACT with our sovereign Agency in this matter, and put an end to Private Banker Dominion?
OCCUPY BIG BANKS 2012: “Regime Change Begins At Home” (Charles Derber)
Bring RICO!
BILL BLACK/YVES SMITH 2012: IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
We the People and Congress Unite! We have nothing to lose but slavery.
BILL BLACK
Thanks for the wonderful article, I was researching for details like this, going to check out the other posts.