Dodd moves on, doesn't understand what 'compromise' means

Some small amount of relief is to be allowed on the financial reform front. After weeks in which it appeared that the Consumer Financial Protection Agency was being weakened, that bad concessions to predatory industries were being made in order to stay buddy buddy with ranking GOP committee members, and disappointing decisions, made in the name of 'bipartisanship', were being made in order to keep letting the finance and banking industries screw us hard and not have to change their behavior after toileting the economy, now it seems that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd has said "fuck this shit" and is moving forward with his own bill.

Largely because he seems to realize that the GOP strategy of "pretending to negotiate in good faith in an attempt to stall things, get large concessions for things they want, and then not support the bill", last employed in the health care debate, was wasting time, making the bill worse, not adding GOP support, and in danger of losing him Democratic support. So Dodd will unveil his own bill... and he's promising that it'll have most of the concessions he made to the GOP in it for some reason.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said he will release his version of legislation to overhaul financial rules, signaling that talks on a compromise with Republican Bob Corker have collapsed.
...
“I have been fortunate to have a strong partner in Senator Corker and my new proposal will reflect his input and the good work done by many of our colleagues,” Dodd said. “Our talks will continue and it is still our hope to come to agreement on a strong bill all of the Senate can be proud to support.”
...
“It has always been my goal to produce a consensus package,” Dodd said in the statement.

The kind of consensus that involves little to no Republican support and will involve the very people you negotiated with calling whatever the bill is some sort of socialist giveaway to banks? So you can't continue on with the negotiations, you have to move forward, you don't think the GOP is on board or will help out in any way (trenchant insight), but yet you're going to keep all of their suggestions that weakened various ways of regulating and governing the industries that just set fire to everyone's money? Makes sense.

So you don't have a consensus, you don't have a compromise... but you'll stick to the comprise negotiated just for the hell of it anyway instead of moving for more stringent, smarter, and better protections and laws? Sounds like a Democrat to me. Now's when you unleash the crazy liberal communist shit in order to drive them back to the table. Someone should tell Dodd how to negotiate. But I guess he does have to think about reelection.... oh that's right, he's retiring. So this all makes complete sense. Good luck with all of that, Chris.

Fuck you, consumers!

With the country solely focused on bullshit political theatre and ginning up it's Finland hate as a test run for hopefully a nationalist anti-Canada fervor on Sunday, some would say now is the best time to drop a disappointing bombshell about the upcoming massively disappointing financial legislation. So, take it away Barry!

The Obama administration is no longer insisting on the creation of a stand-alone consumer protection agency as a central element of the plan to remake regulation of the financial system.

In hopes of quick congressional approval of a reform bill, White House officials are opening the door to compromise with lawmakers concerned about creating a new bureaucracy, according to congressional and some administration sources.

President Obama's economic team is now open to housing the consumer regulator inside another agency, such as the Treasury Department, though they still prefer a stand-alone agency.
...
The administration may also have to compromise on Obama's recent proposal for a rule to limit risky activities at banks by prohibiting them from engaging in many kinds of speculative investments.

What better way to have a agency that protects consumers than by housing it inside government organizations that unwaveringly cater to the interests of the financial sector and have made it a point of pride to ignore consumer interests? But, the Obama Administration still really, really wants a CFPA, they just aren't willing to spend one drop of sweat fighting for it and jettison it the first second some "lawmakers concerned about creating a new bureaucracy" (read: wholly owned subsidiaries of the financial industry) speaks up. If I recall correctly, that's the same strategy they had for the public option, which they totally still support. How'd that work out?

What's that you have to say about the CFPA, smart lady Elizabeth Warren?

"The CFPA is the heart of what makes regulatory reform work... We just can't pass a regulatory reform bill that acquiesces to the industry on every front... It's not ok to weaken the agency so much that, while everyone can vote yes and pretend to support consumers' right to a fair deal, nothing really changes."

Sorry, wasn't paying attention. Could you repeat that? Ahh, it probably wasn't important anyway.

Nice to see that they're also willing to compromise on Obama's plan to limit banks from acting as gambling casino type establishments. What did that plan last, a week?

I just think it's good to see that despite pulling down the world economy on top of itself in a orgy of bad decisions, then having to be kept from total eradication through government intervention with trillions of taxpayer dollars, and entirely jettisoning their credibility as experts or as people who aren't retarded, that the financial sector and banks can still lead our government around by the nose and get what it wants from our elected betters.

I'm sure listening to the idiots that caused this mess by weakening and cheapening every attempt made to regulate and improve the status quo while deciding to pussy out on actually protecting the people that just were simultaneously economically ruined by the financial sector and then had to bail them out is a smart way forward. I'm sure that nothing bad will ever come of it.

Years from now we'll look back, bedecked in our tattered rags, pausing for a moment in repose while blood is cleaned from the abandoned spillway where we've all gathered to watch the bloodsport that entertains us in the post-apocalyptic nightmare of a future we inhabit, and we'll say "Boy, I'm glad we listened to the people that shitted the economy." And then the alarms will sound and we'll all have to run, because the underground hobos will have risen from the sewers to make an attack on our grain silo. Thanks, Democrats!

Headlines

Bomb goes off at JP Morgan offices in Athens

Don't worry your pretty little heads, there was just some damage to glass and some minor building damage. No injuries or casualties. Classic IRA work.

But this is your early clubhouse leader for 2010 headline that starts the most conversations with the phrase "You know, normally I don't condone acts of terrorism and bombings. But, on the other hand..."

Exciting economic news!

Just when you thought the economy was surging to new heights and you'd finally be able to place an order for the platinum monocle, top hat, and spats you'll need as part of your wardrobe now that everyone has ascended to the top of the gilded class what with all these great new jobs we all got... think again. You know the drill; unending horror, plague of locusts, fire from the sky.

But at least it's a different kind of fire. Sure, it's mortgage failures, but on commercial real estate! Oooh, total curveball. And yes, it will imperil society, destroy small businesses, and hinder the economic recovery. Excuse me, economic "recovery." Why do you know you should be afraid? Because the warning are coming from Elizabeth Warren's Congressional Oversight Panel.

A huge wave of mortgage failures on commercial real estate could hit next year, causing banks to lose as much as $300 billion, imperiling lending for small businesses and hindering the economic recovery, a Congressional panel is warning.

In a report to be released on Thursday, the Congressional Oversight Panel... said commercial loan losses could jeopardize the stability of many banks, particularly the nation’s midsize and smaller banks, contributing to prolonged weakness throughout the economy.

The panel’s chairwoman, Elizabeth Warren, has been pressing the Treasury to compel thousands of banks to undergo stress tests like the ones that the Federal Reserve required of 19 of the country’s biggest financial institutions early last year. The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, has called that idea impractical.

The signs are there: Elizabeth Warren saying something bad is on the horizon and coming up with a solution to head it off, Tim Geithner shrugging off the advice and the warning, and industry spokeswhores and lobbyists from organizations such as the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association and the Independent Community Bankers Association calling the reports and warnings exaggerated while touting the overall health and rock solid stability of the nation's banks.

I think we all know what that means: further economic collapse followed by complete societal destabilization and cannibalism. I've learned not to go against Warren when flesh reaving is on the line. So there are two options here: get used to the taste of human jerky or wait for Congress and the rest of our elected betters to act. I think we know how that's going to go. I'll get the teriyaki marinade and you get the meat smoker, I smell further banking collapse on the horizon. And mesquite smoke.

0.05

This is a video by Bill Nighy and Richard Curtis making a short film to kick off a campaign in support of something they're trying to get done in England, the Robin Hood tax, which levies a 0.05% tax on bank transactions in order to raise money to tackle several problems, most notably poverty and climate change. It would ostensibly raise hundreds of billions of dollars a year from banks and financial giants that were bailed out by the public sector during the crisis to help support programs and policies that have taken a severe hit during the financial crisis. There are dozens of charities in support of it, most notably Oxfam, the Salvation Army, and Unicef, and Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Andrea Merkel have expressed support for it.

That's just one of the things the UK is trying to do in addition to all the stuff they've already done. Us? We're still dicking around with proposed language and imagined theoreticals for a financial reform bill, language that will have to be considerably weakened in order to finally pass. Our President has now switched into a "Hey, those banker guys are just hard working joes who earned those big bonuses" mode. In fact, I think the closet we're going to get to a comprehensive reform package is one that requires us to not make eye contact or small talk with the banks after we're forced to put our money on the nightstand after they've had their way with us. You know, if anything passes at all.

I'm not sure, which way is better?

Things I like

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo... suing Bank of America for fraud.

Details:

Cuomo also sued the bank’s former chief financial officer Joe Price and the bank itself for not disclosing about $16 billion in losses Merrill had incurred before it was bought by Bank of America in an effort to get the merger approved. Afterwards, Lewis demanded government bailout funds, Cuomo said.

“We believe the bank management understated the Merrill Lynch losses to shareholders, then they overstated their ability to terminate their agreement to secure $20 billion of TARP money, and that is just a fraud,” Cuomo said today at a press conference. “Bank of America and its officials defrauded the government and the taxpayers at a very difficult time.”

Hey, at least there's one guy out there who is willing to use his power and legal jurisdiction to fight for some accountability for the financial giants and banks that molested our economy. Good luck with that.

And he's a political legacy kid, imagine that. I think the odds are that one out of every twenty isn't some kind of simpering idiot. I think NY is finding that out with Harold Ford Jr.

These guys get it

You know to some, the fact that a company like Morgan Stanley would hand out $14.4 billion dollars in bonuses (62 cents of every dollar of revenue they earned) to their employees during what they describe as "a lean year" is yet another sign that the financial wizards on Wall Street just don't get it.

All that means is you haven't heard about Morgan Stanley CEO Jimmy "Common Man" Gorman

Still, in a gesture to the public mood, Morgan Stanley’s new chief executive, James P. Gorman, said Wednesday that his entire bonus would be paid in the form of deferred stock, with no cash at all.

See? That's exactly what we wanted. We didn't want you to take no bonuses in return for shitting the world economy and building your businesses back up off the backs of free taxpayer money and government loans and guarantees that have artificially inflated your bottom lines and allowed you to show a "profit". No, we just wanted you to award bonuses in a form that was deferred and dished out in a manner that, because of government guarantees, made it certain that you would actually get a bigger bonus than what you had claimed you were getting.

Thanks for finally getting it, Morgan Stanley.

New rules

Today has come the announcement that the Obama Administration will, just for the hell of it, decide to propose some new limits on the size and risks taken by banks. I don't know, that sounds dangerous. Isn't it the fundamental capitalist right of banks to be so goddamn large and complex that even the slightest mistake could send our economy into the toilet and everyone into the breadlines? In any event, in conjunction with the These Bastards junior news gathering arm, the Wall Street Journal, we have endeavored to uncover some of the new proposals that will be... proposed.

• deter banks from becoming so large they put the broader economy at risk and prevent banks from becoming so large they distort normal competitive forces
• place restrictions on the proprietary trading done by commercial banks by limiting the way banks bet with their own capital
• place "firewalls" between different divisions of financial companies to ensure banks don't indirectly subsidize "speculative" trading through other subsidiaries that hold federally insured deposits
• perhaps keep banks out of the business of running hedge funds, investing in real estate or private equity
• seek to return the "spirit of Glass Steagall," meant to limit large banks from becoming too big and complex that create enormous risk
• no CEO of a financial company is allowed to refer to Tim Geithner as "bitch", "bitch boy", "our little bitch", "bitch tits", "that goofy fuck who does everything we want", "Bitchothy Bitchner", "get us our money, bitch", or any other phrase that uses the word "bitch"
• no CEO is allowed to tell a Treasury or Fed official to "get their fuckin' shinebox" unless said official actually has a shinebox
• at the next meeting between the Obama Administration and financial leaders, Paul Volcker gets to "cold cock a random motherfucker in the face, just for the hell of it"
• all bankers and Wall Street employees have to sign a pledge to conduct themselves as rational humans and not like rabid, money hungry lunatics at an Atlantic City craps table
• Goldman-Sachs employees may order gold plated Bugatti Veyron's, but are only allowed to drive them on their sprawling estates and private highways
• All major banks must chip in to hire a distinguished actor who pretend to be the head of a bank and will stand in front of the media and humbly apologize for the economic and financial crises. We'll say he's the CEO of Ameribank.... yeah, that sounds like a real bank. I think they'll buy that.
• they must swear, legally swear, to never do this again, no crossed fingers
• attempts must be made to not so egregiously and obviously buy Senators and House members
• more toaster giveaways for opening new accounts
• do something that shuts Arianna Huffington up about that goddamn "move your money" campaign. Christ that's annoying
• fuck the fuck off and make sure we don't hear a goddamn economic peep out of your bank holes for the next fuckin' decade
  

So those are just some of the proposals that Obama and Paul Volcker hope to get passed. I'm sure the Senate and House will get right on that and Republicans will be eager to help.

As an aside, a fuckload of Bothans were harmed to get this information. So to help out text either "BOTHAN" to 990999 or "GUNDARK" to 550555 in order to donate $10 to the Red Cross Bothan Relief efforts.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.11

Why Is the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Massive UBS Tax Evasion Scheme the Only One Heading to Prison?
When a massive international bank helps thousands upon thousands of people evade taxes and hide money to flagrantly that it has to pay almost a billion dollars in fines, who goes to jail? If you answered "One guy, the one who blew the life off the scandal in the first place" then you... must have read the headline above. Democracy Now conducts and extensive interview with the executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center to show just exactly how banks, the US justice system, and the US government endeared themselves to you again.

Chinese Coal Formed During Earth’s Greatest Extinction Is Still Deadly
You have to hand it to the Chinese. Not only are the set to drag ass on climate change in such an epic manner that it would make the US stand back in awe, they've apparently found and are burning the deadliest and most polluting coal known to man. Not only does this coal, formed 250 million years ago during a massive extinction (I wonder...), pollute just as effectively as the regular stuff, but it come with a cancer chaser that's 20 times greater than normal. See, the Chinese even pollute and poison their populace more effectively than us. We just can't win.

ABC News embraces the nonsense
Let's say you were a TV news director and you were doing a piece on the fact that 28 doctors who have spent their lives studying autism, conducted an exhaustive study that found no correlation between GI disorders, diets and causing autism or diets in improving autism cases. Who is the first person you'd rush to interview for the story? If you said "a Playboy model/vaccine denier", you get to run ABC's news division for the next month. The Bad Astronomy blog takes a look at autism, ABC, Jenny McCarthy, vaccine gainsayers, and the difference between news and "news" and science and "science".

Abortion Foe Defies Party on Health Care Bill
Question. What do you call someone who would kill an attempt to make sure that 45,000 people a year don't die due to lack of access to health care as well as better the lives of millions, because he doesn't think he's getting enough control over women's bodies? That's a serious question, because I don't think "pro-life" quite covers it. The NYT covers Bob Stupak's bitching and moaning over the fact that people don't agree with him.

Google Earth helps find El Dorado
According to some wags on the internet, they've used Google Earth to find the fabled "lost city of gold." Sounds all well and good, but this better not be like the time some jagoffs said the found the lost city of Atlantis on Google Earth or those people who said they found the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This time their treasure better not be knowledge. The lost city of gold better contain some gold. This time I better see some archeologist in a fedora hauling 24 karat bricks of of the Bolivian brush and whipping some fascists in the face.

Vatican takes aim at 'Avatar'
id you ever want to see movie criticism from a leading religious body that not only accurately described the flaws in a movie but also unknowingly provided a meta criticism about itself and the way it runs said religion? Well, God bless the Catholic Church. It's the pot shooting the kettle in the kneecap.

What does England know anyway?

When governments around the world had to bail out and take control of all the banks that were failing, some naively thought that one of the problems inherent in that solution was that the banks and financial institutions that were saved fell into that troublesome "too big to fail" category and that something further needed to be done. What morons. Because we're America and we know better, we decided we needed more "too big to fail" financial giants, or at least the same number as before. The dumber countries (read: everywhere) decided they needed less. Like England, for example.

The British government -- spurred on by European regulators -- is forcing the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock to sell off parts of their operations. The Europeans are calling for more and smaller banks to increase competition and eliminate the threat posed by banks so large that they must be rescued by taxpayers, no matter how they conducted their business, in order to avoid damaging the global financial system.

The move to downsize some of Britain's largest banks comes as U.S. politicians are debating whether American banks should also be required to shrink. The Obama administration has maintained that large banks should be preserved because they play an important role in the economy and that taxpayers instead should be protected by creating a new system for liquidating large banks that run into problems. But Britain's decision already is being cited by a growing chorus of experts, including prominent bankers and economists, who want the United States to pursue a similar approach.

Pussies! Thank God we're so large that we can probably still counter their nonsense and financially drag them down with us again when the time comes. I think the problem here is that UK banks lost so much money that they just didn't have enough left to make campaign contributions to British lawmakers and hire enough lobbyists to prevent meaningful legislative action. Thankfully we don't have that problem here. Hell, the people in charge of US creation, enforcement, and oversight of these regulations all worked in the financial sector (read: Goldman-Sachs), so they don't even need to be lobbied all that hard.

No no, the clear and intelligent path here is not to do anything to prevent stuff like the complete financial collapse of the world from happening. What we need to do is to make laws to expedite the clean-up and rebuilding period after our next inevitable destruction. Even what laws we do have need to be needlessly weakened for little understandable benefit. If you're out trying to prevent something you're just contributing negative energy, what with your continued whining about what bad things are going to happen and obvious, soon to be bursting bubbles on the horizon. No the best solution is to keep everything the same, but streamline the ascension of the post-financial apocalypse hobo hierarchy.

England...I just don't get why you're doing this. I mean when the next global crisis hits, oh...next year probably, and you're relatively unscathed because of extensive preventative measure you've decided to undertake, well, then you're just fucked. Because when we learn of your relative idyllyc existence (you know: one without the brutal hand to hand combat of the Thunderdome, backbiting shantytown politics, and the daily fights for canned goods) we're just going to pile into our dilapidated boats, arm ourselves with guns and spears, and come subjugate you in a manner befitting our new brutal existence. And your people won't be ready for it...because you made sure they avoided total societal collapse. Now who wishes they didn't break up "too big to fail" banks and pass sensible laws? Not the Hobo Council of Elders or the New Flesh Reaver Militia, that's who. We're going to crush you so hard.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.19

In health debate, those numbers are just numbers
The Washington Post takes a look the organization that has had a large hand in shaping the health debate: the Congressional Budget Office. The office that can sent our elected betters scurrying for their ratholes or puffing their chests out in glee if he deems their legislation to cost more or less than the arbitrary dollar threshold that they themselves selected. Their methodology: a complex series of equations, surveys, projections, and math that they admit will almost always be wrong. An interesting look at how they figure out how much things will cost.

Missed Kicks Make Brain See Smaller Goal Post
Wired Science looks at a recent Purdue study on how perception changes for athletes based on how well or poorly they're doing, more specifically: football placekickers. When they're making kicks they see the goalposts as bigger, when they miss the kicks they see the goalposts as smaller. Is this why we lost the Chicago game, Jeff Reed? Have another drink. Sadly this study doesn't show what the hell it is that Jamarcus Russell and Derek Anderson see when they're out on a field throwing worm burners and missing guys by ten yards to the tune of a 35% completion percentage. It must be some hellish nightmare of swooping bats and laughing demons.

The Banks Are Not Alright
Paul Krugman, after headfaking positivity by accusing President Obama of getting stuff done, is back to the woesome dirge that is pointing out how bad our economy actually is. This time it's the banks who are in trouble. They're weak, following policies that will keep them weak, which in turn will keep the economy weak. Plus they're opposing effective regulatory laws. The good news is that the mattress where you'll have to keep all your money under in the future will always be fiscally solvent.

New Medical Marijuana Policy: Obama Administration Will Not Seek Arrests For People Following State Laws
So what's the Justice Department going to do if it can't set up bullshit sting operations to imprison Tommy Chong? What's the FBI and DEA going to do if it can't raid growers with legal permits from the states? Bust real criminals? I think we need to rethink this logical policy and perhaps set up another sting on Chong. While we're at it, let's keep on busting legally operating porn companies as well. Anything we can do to keep all our law enforcement resources from going to worthwhile operations.

Downturn has hit banking lobbyists
Awwwww. You keep hearing all these tragic stories from the global financial apocalypse and they just don't touch you. Then you finally hear a story like this and you know the true meaning of pain and hardship. I mean banking lobbyists not being able to work on getting the banking industry deregulated just because their work on getting the banking industry deregulated happened to melt down the economy and put banks out of business? Life just isn't fair sometimes.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.25

Banks fight to kill proposed consumer protection agency
This is part 3,874 in our Not Learning Anything: The Global Financial Apocalypse and You series, in which banks decide that since almost nonexistent and un-enforced regulation worked out so well for banks and the public at large last time, why not try to handicap any efforts to provide any new oversight. Sounds like a good plan. Maybe next go around we can have every bank fail, or at least be consolidated into one super bank. This seems like the smartest way to go.

Democrats Are Jarred by Drop In Fundraising, Complacency, Absence of Big Donors Cited
Yes Democrats, after a summer in which you spent all your time fucking over the priorities of your base, dicking around on health care, not doing all that much to overturn Bush terrorism policies, and generally just spitting in the face of people who would be willing to give you money, you want to say it's complacency that's making your coffers a little light. That's half right. It's complacency from Democratic leaders, who think they can piss on everyone's shoes and tell them it's raining, that's the reason people can't seem to find money for people who can't seem to find the time to try to do what they ran for election on.

Mount Vernon council distances itself from honor for talk-show host
This is odd. Who would have ever thought that there would be people who would be mortified that their mayor was going to honor Glenn Beck with a Glenn Beck Day and a key to the city? I mean who wouldn't want to tie that crazy albatross around your neck and promote the fact that America's foremost aardvark lover was born and raised in your fair town? Build a statue to him, he's earned it.

Water Found on the Moon
You thought the Fiji and Voss water people were insufferable beyond all belief, wait till you meet the Moon Water people who drink their water from a moon aquifer that has never even touched an atmosphere, let alone air impurities. That's right, the friggin' moon has friggin' water on it. Don't worry, they're going to investigate this in the best way they know how: by crashing a spacecraft called LCROSS into it. Eat it Japan! We're the moon smashing water kings now.

Ford China Plant: Automaker Will Build $490 Million Facility
That's how you rebuild the American car industry....by packing it up and putting it in Chongqing, which I'm pretty sure was named after the villain in Van Damme's Bloodsport. Let's see, they have a plant in China, with Chinese labor, making cars under Chinese manufacturing standards, for sale in the Chinese market. Those goddamn things must be so cheap they actually give you money to take one. But I guess Ford are the smart ones, they're the ones we didn't have to bail out.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.22

Waterboarding Doesn’t Work, Scientists Say
I don't want to blow your minds too hard before noon, so let me slow walk you through this one: the use of waterboarding, stress positions, and sleep deprivation are proven to actually destroy memory functions cause frontal lobe damage. So let's see, that makes it morally, ethically, legally, medically, and scientifically wrong to use waterboarding as a torture enhanced interrogation method. Do we need more, or must we unearth an ancient stone tablet that says it too?

Better world: Be nice to people
Great, now science says that being nice and altruistic acts spread through non-internet social networks and that being kind within your social groups can come back to benefit you, if you want to think about it selfishly. In a related study they show that negative acts and bad vibes can spread the same way, and that, more or less, Sean and I are responsible for the genocide in Darfur. Sorry. Our bad. We'll try to perk it up a bit here.

F.D.I.C. May Borrow Funds From Banks
Turns out that the FDIC is almost out of cash due to a little matter of all the banks failing. Now, desperate for cash, instead of turning to the Treasury Department for a always available line of credit, they're just going to borrow from the banks that haven't collapsed. In a related story, WE CAN SEE THE FUTURE! Don't offend us lest we use our awesome powers on you.

U.N. Climate Conference Opens With Call for Unity
The UN Climate Conference has started with big speeches from Barry and Hu Jintao talked of the need for large action on climate change and pollution controls before the ceremony ended when both simultaneously faked fainting spells when they were directly asked about concrete actions their countries were taking. Whew! That was a close one there, boys. You almost had to mention a concrete plan. Artfully dodged.

Kirk Cameron's 'Origin Of Species' Plan: Ex-Actor To Distribute 50,000 Altered Darwin Books
Far be it from me to mock those who follow the teachings of evangelical former TV stars, after all, I handle venomous snakes for Jesus at the church Alan Thicke started near my house. But isn't Kirk worried that trying to indoctrinate children with a fancifully distorted text filled with lies is going to infringe on what the church does? I smell a lawsuit. Still, I'm sure that altering a scientific text to include ominous Hitler, racism, and misogynist accusation towards the author is what God would have wanted. I'm just a little surprised, I thought Kirk's banana video would have converted everyone who believed in evolution.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.14

It’s Showdown Week for the Baucus Six, With a Medicaid Fight Looming
Max Baucus is finally ready to put his chairman's seal of approval on some health care legislation this week. The only question is if he'll be able to forge some sort of compromise with the bill they've written and get Republican lawmakers to sign on (HA!), or if he'll just rubber stamp the bill without their support. Because after all, after the bill that you've crafted with the expressed purpose of gaining Republican votes fails to get the Republican votes of the people who directly negotiated with, the only solution is to move forward with that bill and all the provisions in it that failed to capture Republican votes.

Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America'
I don't know whether to sing a verse from the "Star Spangled Banner" or "America, Fuck Yeah!" here. A dramatic film about Darwin that is only marginally about evolution has gotten distribution in every other country, but can't get distribution here...for some reason. Now sure, some might say that it's just because the movie is "Flat, dull, and painful to sit through", but that didn't stop Transformers 2, or half-to-three quarters of all movies that get released. Oh well, maybe we can get a documentary about the facts behind the Creation Museum instead.

Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy
Who would have ever thought that a census could ever provide a furious smackdown of the Bush legacy? But when you look at the trend lines from previous Presidents comparing median income, adults living in poverty, children living in poverty, access to health care, Americans uninsured, Americans receiving employer health insurance, Amer.....look it's rather a lot of things, we'll just say "everything either declined in a bad way or rose in a bad way" and be done with it.

Stiglitz Says Banking Problems Are Now Bigger Than Pre-Lehman
What is it with these Nobel Prize winning economists and their need to let everyone know that not only were they right about the economic collapse, but that they have some new soul crushing revelations? Things are worse and problems are larger? Who would have ever thought that would be the result after a Congress completely in the pocket of the banking and financial industries committed themselves to doing nothing other than handing out large sums of cash? For those of you that are interested, this is Part 124,868 in the series America: Not Learning From It's Mistakes.

Santorum Admits to Pondering Run for Republican Presidential Nomination - Asks for Prayers
Can he tell if the prayers are coming from heathen sources only wishing for him to engage in electoral failure that matches this moment of greatness? Surely he's going to be able to tell that my prayers, Sean's prayers, and Dan Savage's prayers aren't filled with anything other than malicious intent, right?

Broken In Brief: FDIC refuses to insure FDIC

WASHINGTON--With its reserves at a mere $10.4 billion as of August 1, down from $42.5 billion one year ago, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced today that, were it pressed, the institution would not insure itself.

"Come on, would you back us?" said Chairwoman Sheila C. Blair at a morning press conference. "US Banks lost almost $4 billion in the second quarter alone. Sure, stocks are up a bit, but the revenue they're generating? Yep, we'd be crazy to."

Investors were mostly confounded by the announcement, given that it came from the head of the organization designed to guarantee the safety of deposits in the country's banks.

"I wouldn't insure us either, now that America is mostly back to stuffing spare nickels into coffee cans in the backyard," Asked Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citibank, America's largest and least culpable banking institution. "How are we supposed to levy a service charge on that?"

In the wake of Blair's announcement investors, namely China, Saudi Arabia, and The Ferengi Alliance, flocked to their respective podiums to declare their willingness to immediately and without most conditions, to insure the FDIC.

As for the future of American banking and the economy, Blair had one suggestion, "Don't think about it. That's how the American economy works now: we put our heads down, ignore the problems, and hope everything works out by magic. This won't be a problem unless everyone focuses on it."

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.21

Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did
Glenn Greenwald on how Walter Cronkite can't even be buried yet because his body is spinning so furiously they can't get it into a casket. Why? Due to all the journalists who seem to praise Cronkite but don't seem to have the slightest recognition of how far their profession has fallen and how little of what they do resembles the kind of work he and men like him did.

Cocksure
Malcolm Gladwell on the banking and financial crisis and how it relates to the psychology of overconfidence, notably how we tend to overrate our accuracy and intelligence as we get older. I know what you're saying "I can't believe the financial industry is rife with self-important, over confident, self absorbed assholes!" Believe it. Read all the way through to the story of the guy who wrecked Bear Stearns getting standing ovations from various parts of the company as he left.

Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency finds
What's that you say? The marked increase in abstinence only education during the Bush years led to sharp increases in teen pregnancy and STD's over that period? My God, who could have foreseen that shunning knowledge for religious moralizing and mythmaking would have disastrous consequences? Other than all those previous studies and medical analysis that said so. Next you're going to tell me that the areas that saw the biggest increases were in the south where there was the greatest emphasis on abstinence and the STD eradicating powers of Jesus. Inconceivable.

Eliot Spitzer not my only governor - hooker who worked for Kristin Davis
Just what everyone loves: needlessly cryptic hookers. In between talking about how weird Eliot Spitzer was and how cheap Bernie Madoff was, comes a tale of yet another governor who decided that he'd like to resign in disgrace. But alas, she deigns to name names. Lord Baby Jesus, I don't ask for much, I'm just asking that it be Mark Sanford.

San Diego menaced by jumbo squid
In a stunning gambit to claim the seas before the robots get any ideas, giant fucking squid have been attacking swimmers and getting ink all over San Diego. Did I mention they're giant? Yeah, I did. Did I mention they fly, have fucking parrot beaks, eat meat, and have been attacking swimmers? Shit yourself yet? Don't worry, when their icy tentacles grab you and they sink their beak into you, possibly while you're swimming in the pool or on the toilet, then you'll know who rules the seas.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.10

Gingrich: Americans ‘surrounded by paganism.’
Newt, fresh off of declaring people racist and giving speech tips to Sarah Palin, decided he hadn't spent enough time pandering to the religious right. And really, he is going to need support from the religious type is we are going to have our 2012 Newt-volution. In a wide ranging speech he declared Christianity the foundation of everything, claimed the Prop 8 victory was a "miracle from God's hand", and warned that America is under constant threat from pagan influences. It was unclear if he meant just the Harry Potter books or was including all the Pagan traditions Christians swiped for their holidays. He would have expounded, but he had to leave early to go cheat on his 4th wife with his future 5th wife.

U.S. clears 10 big banks to repay bailout funds
What do you know, they actually paid the money back. $68 billion to be precise. Funnily enough this caused an initial rise in the stock market before it "later shed most of the gains on concern the money could be better used for lending to boost the economy rather than paying it back to Treasury." That's right, the market reacts poorly to taxpayers getting paid back. I hope you don't have any plans for that money, like health care or a couple more months in Iraq, we need that money for car companies. Thanks banks, let's hope this was actually a good idea and not just some shortsighted attempt to unburden yourselves from all those regulations. I know what I'm betting on.

Gore To North Korea? Obama May Send Ex-VP To Negotiate Journalists' Release
Turns out the Obama Administration might need Al Gore to get off his fat, global warming, Nobel winning ass and start doing something productive. Like hostage negotiations. Because....uh....Al Gore...uh...something something. Why is this a good idea? Has he ever done anything like this before? Maybe Obama is just hoping that because the two journalists worked for Gore's Current network, he'll be extra motivated to get them back on the job and earning him some scratch, instead of lounging it in a North Korean prison camp, building Kim Jong-Il a really big waterslide.

A Brief History of Erotic Asphyxiation
In honor of David Carradine, who's sexual self suffocation has given me the immense please of hearing Nancy O'Dell, Pat O'Brien, and Mary Hart talk about auto-erotic asphyxiation and other celebrities bizarre sexually/drug related deaths. From Frantisek Kotzwara to Michael hutchence to the Snake Charmer himself, learn the complete history of what happens when you don't have a spotter watching you while you wank it with a belt around your neck.

Remote Pacific nation to take Gitmo detainees
Finally the US Government has found something to do with the 17 innocent Chinese Uighur Muslims that it had been holding a Guantanamo for no good reason: they're shipping them off to another island. But this time it's in the Pacific! They're getting a one way ticket to Palau. Interesting facts about Palau. 1. There were actually more people being held at Gitmo than are citizens of Palau. 2. Chances are your house is bigger than Palau. 3. In order to get them to take these 17 innocent people, we're going to have to pay them close to $200 million in development assistance. 4. It will pretty much be swallowed by the sea if the ice caps melt any more.So good luck Uighurs, hope you enjoyed our hospitality. Hope Al Gore's hostage negotiations don't take too much time away from his trying to prevent the destruction of your new home.

Oh goody, they learned nothing

Here I was thinking that the major lesson that banks and financial institutions would pick up from this near apocalypse were to not tie up all their assets in poorly thought out gambles and to act like they had a shred of common sense. What was I thinking? No, what they learned is that they weren't being crooked enough and that there were quite a few corners that could still be cut.

Big banks in the U.S. say they’re on the mend. The five largest were profitable in the first quarter, rebounding from record losses for the industry in the fourth quarter. Share prices have jumped, with the KBW Bank Index doubling since March 6.
...
The revival may be short-lived. Analysts who have examined the quarterly profits and government tests say that accounting rule changes and rosy assumptions are making the institutions look healthier than they are.
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Citigroup’s $1.6 billion in first-quarter profit would vanish if accounting were more stringent, says Martin Weiss of Weiss Research Inc. in Jupiter, Florida. “The big banks’ profits were totally bogus,” says Weiss, whose 38-year-old firm rates financial companies. “The new accounting rules, the stress tests: They’re all part of a major effort to put lipstick on a pig.”

Further deterioration of loans will eventually force banks to recognize losses that their bookkeeping lets them ignore for now, says David Sherman, an accounting professor at Northeastern University in Boston. Janet Tavakoli, president of Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc. in Chicago, says the government stress scenarios underestimate how bad the economy may get.

Wait, it still might get worse? I was fucking leading the diminished expectations of happiness parade in the previous post! Thanks for the heads up, now I look like a jackass.

But hey, pretend profits are a step up from actual losses. If you want to look at a silver lining, things used to be so bad that banks couldn't even use bullshit accounting to hide the damage. Now they can. That's progress. Besides, people are too quick to judge and too quick to throw out terms like "bullshit accounting". Other than Enron, Worldcom, and Arthur Andersen, what companies have destroyed themselves with accounting magic? Don't try to think of any, just accept that it was only those three. Besides, isn't the best time to start idiotic accounting practices right after you narrowly avoided death for your idiotic mortgage, loan, and securities practices? I mean what are the odds of two financial apocalypses in the same fiscal year? I'm sure nothing bad will come of this. It all sounds so very smart.

Someone want to slap Bernanke?

Bernanke Says U.S. Banks Must Test More to Identify Other Risks

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said efforts by U.S. banks to raise capital are “encouraging” and called on firms to identify other risks through internal stress tests.

The banks, especially those with “trading and investment banking businesses,” should keep monitoring “operational, liquidity and reputational risks,” which weren’t addressed by the exam concluded last week, Bernanke said in a speech yesterday at a Fed conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia.

Yeah Ben, I'm sure they'll get right on the self-testing. Just like they got on the self-regulation and self-correction during the Bush years. You know what's going to happen if you're relying on banks to self-test? Nothing. Nothing is going to happen. Why? Because financial institutions live to avoid regulation. The only financial innovation to happen in the last decade has been in discovering ways to circumvent rules, ignore rules, evade detection, and in new lobbying techniques to get current rules weakened.

You know we just handed out trillions of dollars. Maybe we should, I don't know, keep tabs on that ourselves? Just an idea I had. Maybe we should be the ones assessing the strength of banks and financial institutions so we can, I don't know, be ahead of the curve? Know what's going on? Find out whether or not this is going to happen again in 6 months? I know Benny, you just don't want to do your job. You thought reducing interest rates to zero would effectively give you nothing else to do. Now that black guy wants you to exercise a modicum of oversight on banks. You want them to do it themselves. It's summer. It's golf time. Does no one understand?

Maybe you should just pretend to do oversight. Pretend to stress test. Sure, failure of oversight and regulation helped grease the skids for one massive economic collapse, but it's never gone and caused two collapses back-to-back. History is on your side. Go get your clubs, the first tee awaits.

Underpants gnomes

Phase one: Collect a massive Government bailout
Phase two: ???????
Phase three: Never ending profit!!!

Bank of America Corp. posted strong first-quarter earnings Monday as higher revenue from the purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. helped offset a surge in credit costs. Wall Street, concerned about banks' continuing loan problems, looked past Bank of America's profit and fell sharply.

Bank of America's results surpassed analysts' expectations. But like other banking companies, it is still stuggling with fallout from the recession, taking a hefty $13.4 billion provision for credit losses.

The bank's stock fell $1.32, or 12.5 percent, to $9.28 as the overall stock market slid. Although Wall Street was happy last week with better-than-expected results from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., banking companies generally benefited during the quarter from unusually strong bond trading, a trend not expected to continue while loan problems persist.

That's right, you can be a Wall Street financial genius as well. As long as you get enough government money to exceed your losses and combine it with methods that are unsustainable in the current economic climate, you too can pretend that you made a profit and are thus a CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY~! Spend a couple of mil redecorating the office, pretend all that hate towards you and your kind is just envy of your massive capitalist penis, and start up the credit default swaps on mortgages because surely this will never happen again.

At least all this bailing out and ten billion dollar loans/writedowns/shakedowns are providing their intended purpose: helping out the citizens affected by the recession fake balance sheet profits. At least now, what with them being so flush with cash and profitable, the banks have decided to increase lending like they were supposed to. They haven't? Well, who could have foreseen?

This is all working out so well for everyone who isn't a banker or derivatives trader.