Sobering list of economic facts of the day

Michael Snyder, he of the cheerily named The Economic Collapse Blog, has brought together a cheery list of economic facts for his recent article in Sunshine and Smiles monthly entitled The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove It.

Try not to slit your wrists until you finish it.

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Remember: up the road, not across the street. That's right, let the red life juice flow into the warm bath.

Just something to keep in mind when our elected betters, media elites, and money overlords tell us that letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire and letting tax rates on the top 1% return to the levels they were during the late nineties will cause some sort of colossal moneygeddon. Excuse me, re-moneygeddon.

Silver linings

"Good news everyone!"

I know we're all worried about jobs and the economy. The former now that another 700,000 are likely to be added to the lazy peasant bread lines and decadent soup kitchen dinners that a couple million of our spoiled American brethren have been living like kings on lo these past months.

Don't worry. Because things are picking up.... for the assholes that ruined the economy in the first place.

While much of the country remains fixated on the bleak employment picture, hiring is beginning to pick up in the place that led the economy into recession — Wall Street.

The shift underscores the remarkable recovery of the biggest banks and brokerage firms since Washington rescued them in the fall of 2008, and follows the huge rebound in profits for members of the New York Stock Exchange, which totaled $61.4 billion in 2009, the most ever.

Warms the fucking cockles of your heart, doesn't it?

I'm just glad that we don't have to see sad, struggling, 26 year-olds who used to be making high six figures now scraping by on low six figures. Ordering house wines, ordering drinks by the glass instead of bottle service at the club, wearing off the rack Armani, and buying a BMW 128i. WE ALL KNOW THAT'S THE CHEAPEST MODEL BMW MAKES!

Things are getting better for them and I, for one, will sleep easier at night. I'm sure it's all going to come around soon for the rest of us.

Sorry to everyone whose sarcasm detectors I just broke.

That just about sums up the past year plus

As the election season starts to ramp up, so does the whoring for political money season. Not that prostituting yourself out for big business' nickels is ever out of season, it's just that most candidate's internal whoring meter switches from "barely concealing the obviousness with which they sell out the average American voter" to "openly exchanging votes for a large burlap sack with a dollar sign on it, handed to them by a man with a monocle and spats on."

But what happens to a political party when they've spent the better part of a year trying to maybe kind of rein in the parties responsible for causing the global financial crisis? Plus maybe telling insurance companies that they shouldn't be such complete money grubbing shits and attempting to hold an oil company responsible for a massive environmental catastrophe? Sure, all of these attempts were half-assed, concession filled, compromise riddled, and willing bent over and inserted loopholes for the very industries they were attempting to regulate, but Democrats had the audacity to maybe question their corporate masters.

How did this go over with their moneyed betters? Not well, according to the Washington Post. With the Democratic campaign committees flagging behind their GOP brethren in the "raising money from the Monopoly guy's buddies" category.

Now normally, this would be time for Democrats to asses the situation, see how they're being openly criticized by unpopular industries and business leaders, see how close said unpopular business are to the GOP, and decide to make a stand on "standing up for the little guy against the evil excesses of the business world" no matter how dishonest that statement is. But no, this is Washington 2010 and these are Democrats.

In a Thursday interview, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that rather than recoiling against Obama, business leaders should be grateful for his support on at least a half-dozen counts...
...
But, in the White House view, some business leaders listen only to Obama speeches being tough on BP or on the excesses of Wall Street and assume Obama is hostile to business across the board. “Rather than respond to atmospherics, they should look at policies where we have been supportive,” Emanuel said.
...
Obama administration officials also are quick to point out that Corporate America hasn’t done so badly under Obama -- according to the most recent data, corporate profits are up 34 percent from first quarter 2009 to first quarter 2010.

That's how you lick some boot. Why position yourself as some sort of champion of the people, fighting against the excesses of big business... of which there a a litany of examples with massively negative consequences? That actually might be popular and helpful. Good thing you didn't do that then, Rahm.

It explains so much.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.01

Gregg Peltz's Victorian Star Wars portraits

Health care overlord Comrade Obama has unleashed his health care scheme on us. Now he has informed us of the exact schedule of and options we will have under the oppressive bootheel of his socialist scheme. Healthcare.gov gives people the rundown on the new health care policy, from the exact time the spirit of Lenin will possess your youngest child, to the brainwashing camp schedule, to when you can schedule the shock troops to kick in your door and stick grandma with a Bowie knife.

Talking Points Memo recounts the saga and details of the Russian spy ring and finds them lacking. Almost comically inept. From not actually getting any useful information, handing over their equipment to undercover FBI agents, to stating their address as 99 Fake Street, they weren't struggling to make the Russian espionage hall of fame. Not that any of this matters, this is all a viral marketing scheme for Salt... OPENING JULY 23RD!

All throughout this massive global financial crisis, we have been able to say one thing: we may have a government rife with banking shills and financial conglomerate insiders, but at least they're working for us. Like, putting us on the hook for billions of dollars worth of worthless Bear-Stearns assets... and then lied to Congress about it. So lets see, that makes it Bernanke, Geithner, most of the White House, every elected Republican, significant chunks of House Democrats, and every key Democrat in the Senate working to largely look out for the interests of the financial industry over citizens. Goddamn, Boehner was right... that's not nearly enough protection for the financial industry.

Soccer is taking hold, America. Sure, the US National Team, as is typical, shit itself about a round before it should have to realistically maximize this World Cup, but it's making inroads. How do we know? Landycakes' winner against Algeria broke the intarwebs and all associated internetting tubes. It was officially the biggest driver of internet traffic ever. Socialized medicine, liberals in charge, and gay no hands/no hitting sports taking over our consciousness? We're almost Europe, people. Or, alternately, a third world country if you follow John Oliver's math. If we don't eat sufficient amounts of red meat and blow up large chunks of this country over the weekend, we're essentially indistinguishable from Portugal.

We would like to join the world in wishing legendary effects maestro Ray Harryhausen a happy 90th birthday. Your Clash of the Titans still looked more real than this summer's Clash of the Titans. In honor of the man, here are fighting skeletons.

Them!

Weepin' John Boehner decided it had been a while since he had stepped on his dick in public, so he decided to open his mouth and remind everyone why he shouldn't be allowed to to run a roadside frogurt stand.

In between calling for rebellion, noting that the groundswell for rebellion was greater now than at any point since 1776, calling for the retirement age to be raised to 70 so the GOP can pay for all the wars they want to wage, whining on behalf of BP, crying over health reform, and talkin' big about how he's gonna kill it, he decided to muster up that extra bit of gumption to really shill for the financial industry and the mean nasty government that's trying to regulate them because they destroyed the world economy.

Boehner criticized the financial regulatory overhaul compromise reached last week between House and Senate negotiators as an overreaction to the financial crisis that triggered the recession.

“This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon,” Boehner said.

Oh, the poor defenseless financial giants. When will government stop looking out for them 99% of the time and start looking out for them 100% of the time. They're just a tiny little ant being menaced by government.

Yeah, ants.



Nuclear irradiated ants that will kill and eat us all unless we mobilize the government to smash them into irradiated ant paste. Boehner made a pretty apt metaphor... as long as you make it correspond to 50's monster movies. Although if this example were real, our government would decide to partner with the giant nuclear ants to regulate the giant nuclear ants. Then the large irradiated ant-loving Boehner would bitch that we weren't turning enough of our society over to our radioactive Vespoidean overlords.

The largest financial crisis since the Depression. Ants. Someone hit him.

Your future crisis

With the United States about to pass some week kneed financial reform full of loopholes, the rest of the world has come together at the G-20 Summit to tell the world they are prepared to do little else, that everyone agrees that it's time to focus on imaginary problems, and that they are fully committed to not making the financial system less dangerous in any way. Bully for them. 10% unemployment in the US and larger unemployment figures in Europe is just something people should learn to get used to.

But as we see what the world's elites has learned from this crisis (nothing) and their plans going forward (do nothing), one wonders what our financial betters have learned. Other than they can do whatever they want with no consequences, that after they set everyone's money on fire they still have immense credibility and influence with lawmakers, and that no matter what they do and how reckless it is governments will line up to bail out their failures. But we knew that already. They knew that already. I'm talking about what they've learned from this recent crisis to help them make more money creating the next crisis. And just what will that next crisis be?

Simon Johnson thinks he's figured it out: Debt-to-GDP ratios in the developed world. He cites a quote from a high up Goldman Sachs muckity muck. How will they leverage Debt-to-GDP in the emerging world? Through lending to emerging markets and leveraging the fact that debt-to-GDP in the developing world is about half what it is in the developed world. Johnson goes to the trouble of listing why this new plan is dangerous, the problems in their thinking, and the way it will inevitably fail, this time taking down emerging countries with it, but he ties it around the question: What is Goldman Sachs thinking?

I think I have it figured out:


I think that's pretty much the extent of their thinking, even down to the pirate costumes. Maybe there's a variation on this where Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein imagines himself as a cartoon cow with wobbly legs, playing a ukulele in a grass skirt, but I think I pegged it pretty close.

Quote of the day

During this financial crisis, who really has to respect the chutzpah, nay balls, of our financial betters. They ruined the economies of the world on the backs of financial products they didn't understand, bankrupted several countries, worked against the interests of their clients for their own gain, caused an immense international crisis through low rent gambling and stupidity, and cost the taxpayers trillions. But throughout that, they still have maintained their smug sense of superiority, their complete failure to recognize they did anything even mildly wrong, the belief that they actually provided a service of some tangible value, and attempted to stop any and all attempts to reign in their behavior... of which they largely succeeded.

But every once in a while you get to see the bile and rage bubble up and you see their true contempt for the people they almost deliberately fucked over. In this case you can strike the "almost" from the equation. Bernie Madoff did deliberately fuck over his clients... and he's still mad they didn't thank him for the pleasure.

According to a lengthy new piece by Steve Fishman in New York magazine, Madoff, who apparently pals around with a former mob boss and a spy in a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina told a fellow inmante, "Fuck my victims. I carried them for twenty years, and now I'm doing 150 years.
...
"One day, Shannon Hay, a drug dealer who lived in the same unit in Butner as Madoff, asked about his crimes. "He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more," says Hay, who was released in December. People, in other words, who deserved it.

See, he carried them. By which he means he stole from them and others to enrich himself while running a Ponzi scheme that, in fact, made no actual money. Why aren't these assholes grateful? Why didn't they protect their money overlord Bernie? The ingrates.

So gaze upon one of the biggest and best of the financial industry and marvel. Despite the fact that he stole from people for decades and the overwhelming amount of evidence of wrongdoing that put him in prison for a century and a half, the son of a bitch still thinks he didn't do anything wrong and that he was hard done by. That's some quality delusion and a wonderful example of the mindset that runs rampant through our financial betters. It's why they spend tens of millions opposing regulations or, more recently, stonewall federal panels. They can't believe you think they did something wrong when they shitted the world economy. The insolence, you peasants.

But don't think it's all self absorbed whining for Bernie Madoff, there's some good things he's done recently as well. Namely he got beaten up in a prison fight! So there's that.

These are serious men

It's clear that around these parts we don't have much respect for the financial sector. Some might say we're being to harsh on them but we're just trying to base our opinion off of all that horrible shit they did. We're probably too easy on them.

But in this debate over Chris Dodd's financial reform bill we've heard complaints from our money overlords that the government isn't fit to regulate the financial sector because Uncle Sam just doesn't understand the markets or how they work. To which I say: you lot bankrupted the world on the premise that bubbles would never burst and that the best place to set up millions of carefully placed dominoes would be on a major fault line next to a team of clumsy pogo-stick jumpers with vertigo.... you don't understand what you're doing either.

But as the months pass and stories come out about the conduct of our financial betters, one theme is clear: they are essentially low rent gambling addicts that would leverage the entire economy on a wet t-shirt contest if they thought they could make a buck off of it. Case in point.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s mortgage traders, under the spotlight because of the U.S. government's fraud lawsuit against the securities firm, made markets in more than just bonds during the real-estate bubble.

They also cast bets on a White Castle hamburger-eating contest.

In December 2007, after the firm distributed multimillion-dollar bonus checks in part thanks to bets on a mortgage meltdown, about 10 Goldman mortgage traders, surrounded by dozens of cheering colleagues, wolfed down the burgers, according to attendees. Bystanders wagered cash on how many burgers the traders could eat.

At least they didn't leverage companies on this hamburger eating contest or chop up the burgers and put them into derivatives and sell CDO's on them, no, that would be ridiculous. I'm going to assume that it's only because they couldn't think of a way to do it or realized that they'd seem somewhat ridiculous trying to get investors and hedge funds to gamble billions on their confidence in the fact that the Rand-dawg could polish off 40 burgers in one sitting anytime, anywhere and that Phil from marketing was a weak kneed pussy.

So what was the difference between what they did with mortgages and burger eating contests? Absolutely nothing, aside from the scale of the enterprise and maybe some post-contest bathroom puke sessions. This is the kind of shit that toileted the economy: meatheads standing in a circle, throwing Benjamins around, yelling "Swap, swap, swap" instead of "Eat, eat, eat."

So of course it's clear that the federal government shouldn't take any undue action to further regulate these serious titans of finance. I mean how could they understand something as complex as high stakes gambling by rich scumbags? Just send everyone to a mandated Gambler's Anonymous meeting and tell them that next time, bet the economy on something a little more stable than housing... like a horse or a football game. The world economy will thank you.

Quote of the day

Alan Greenspan was on the Hill today to blame everyone else for the complete meltdown of the financial industry and the global economy during a meeting of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. In between trying not to blame banks or financial giants for what happened and blaming homeowners and poor people, Big Al offered up this assessment of how fuckin' awesome he thinks he is.

Greenspan: When you've been in government for 20 years, as I have been, the issue of retrospective and figuring out what you should have done differently is a really futile activity... My experience has been, in the business I was in I was right 70 percent of the time, but I was wrong 30 percent of the time and there are an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years.

Angelides: Would you put this in the 30 percent category?

Greenspan: I don't know.

Gee, you're only awesome 3/4th's of the time? How "man of the people" of you. Just one question, are you counting that whole "failure to foresee any of the massive problems that contributed to the global financial apocalypse and in many ways contributing to and exacerbating the problems" as one problem within the 30% or as comprising the entire 30%? Because it was a pretty massive fuck-up that seems like it could hardly be contained in the latter, so it seems like you're sweeping the "greatest economic collapse since the Depression" into the single mistake category, like that time you called your secretary Jane instead of Jan.

I know you think 70% is good and you're being modest, but you need to stop thinking of it in baseball terms. Sure if you were on the Yankees and were hitting .700, we'd be enshrining you in the Hall as we speak. But, say, if you were at a Community College and you were getting 70% of things right, you'd be well on your way to failing to get that two year degree in air conditioning maintenance and repair. You're a low-C/high-D student. As the state of the economy shows, that might just be a generous estimate.

Goldman will be keeping that money, thanks for asking

The last year or so hasn't been a great one, PR wise, for Goldman-Sachs. They've been caught up in an orgy of public hate over their actions, populist rage over bonuses, spitefully insightful Matt Taibbi articles, damning news reports, shady dealings, tone deaf behavior, and a general sense they they would steal the internal organs of children if they could just find a way to leverage it in the financial markets. On the other hand, they've also been caught up in an orgy of money and probably an actual orgy or two. Which, considering the general looks and attractiveness of your average Goldman worker, could be considered a crime against decency and taste.

They are loathed and no one there seems to understand that or want to take any real action to stop a public hatred so palpable that I'm surprised Goldman execs don't have to hack through it with machetes just to get into the office in the morning. On the other hand, their shareholders do seem to get it. Unfortunately, the board seems to think the shareholders should shut the fuck up already.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS.N) board has rejected demands from shareholders that the firm investigate recent compensation awards, recoup excessive compensation and reform pay practices.

Wall Street's dominant bank, criticized for paying billions of dollars in bonuses soon after the taxpayer bailout of the banking industry, reported the board's decision in a regulatory filing on Monday.

Goldman reported the shareholder demands last year and said at the time that its board was considering them. The firm did not name the shareholders who made the demands.

Sure their dirty dealings, shady practices, and connections to the Treasury Department and Fed have basically given them a license to print money off the backs of taxpayers. On the other hand, they did cap bonuses at $16.2 billion instead of the $20 billion their employees "earned", practically dooming their brokers to a life of poverty... all in the name of the public good.

So shouldn't we shut up already about all the stuff they did and continue to do to leverage our pain, misery and money into more money for themselves? While we and their shareholders might say no, the GS board says yes. And really, shouldn't we listen to them? After all they are pretty damned rich. Let's shut up.

The Gilded Age

It's tough out there for rich people. Us poors and our tenement shacks are sometimes within full view of their well moneyed eyes, there's a slight possibility that they might have to pay taxes at the same rate they did in the late nineties, and while we in the hobo underclass are poorly educated (or at least massively debt ridden for the education we were able to cobble together out of twigs and $200 textbooks) we are not so uneducated as to be unable to realize the massive inequality in income distribution that has only increased over the past decade. Plus they also have all those additional rich guy problems like an unclean mansion, road salt stains on their Bentley, and constant fear of a peasant uprising.

But good news is still out there for our beleaguered riches. It's that whole income disparity thing I mentioned. It's truly staggering how good the news is for them.

The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that average income reported by the top 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefits the wealthy.

Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992, the statistics show. Their average effective tax rate was about half the 29.4 percent in 1993, the first year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when taxes were increased.
...
The top 400 earners received a total $138 billion in 2007, up from $105.3 billion a year earlier. On an inflation-adjusted basis, their average income grew almost fivefold since 1992, the data show.

$138 billion for 400 families. On the other hand, the bottom fifth of this country, 24 million people, are worth a collective $247 billion. If they just pooled their money, they could out fancy pants our financial elite. So, you know, poor people win again.

I'm just thankful all those Bush tax cuts went through. Sure it might have added $1.8 trillion to the deficit and put income inequality at 1920's robber baron levels, but thankfully all the jobs and economic growth that these rich people have been able to provide because of the tax cuts they received have been able to stave off drastic job losses because of the financial crisis they also caused. It's great that it was able to work out that way.

I'm on a boat

What with this country still in the throes of the horrific financial apocalypse, many of our local and state governments are in dire financial straights. In fact, that was one of the main goals of the stimulus: to paper over state budgetary holes and prevent them from drastically cutting services and jobs. But as time goes on and budgets must be passed and horrible financial reality must be observed, states are being forced to come up with new ways to deal with those budget shortfalls.

Like taxing the rich. Just kidding. The standard operating procedure of this country in times of economic hardship remains 'do not tax the rich in any way'. No, what I meant to type up above was 'continue to put the screws to the poor'. You know, like Missouri Missourah does.

Cash-strapped legislators have recommended spending cuts for Missouri schools and shelters for battered women, but so far the yachting class can enjoy another season of clear sailing.

Thanks to a longstanding tax exemption, Missouri’s marina set can opt to pay a small fee in lieu of sales taxes and shave as much as $30,000 off the purchase of a $500,000 boat.

That tax exemption alone is depriving state and local coffers of more than $6 million a year, according to some estimates.
...
For now, however, yachts are treated like baby formula for the poor, tickets to the state fair and even newsprint —all are exempt from state and local sales taxes.

You'll be glad to know that if you buy a regular boat in Missourah you still have to pay full freight. It's only the luxury yachts that get the tax break. Because if during these harsh economic times our economic betters have to pay tax on the luxury boats that they purchase for their leisure time, well then by God, the terrorists, socialists, and all manner of evil creatures will have won.

So thank you to Missourah for showing us the way during these troubled times. Fuck the poor, cut schools, keep them women battered, and don't let anyone even think of making sure sales tax is payed on a luxury yacht. Your state serves as a lesson to us all.

Quote of the day

If you actually needed another example of how Democrats are just completely tin eared and awful, today our favorite collection of spineless lickspittles decided that they weren't even sure they were for rescinding the Bush tax cuts on rich people. You know the ones: they exploded the budget deficit and almost uniformly benefited the top 5% of this country? Yeah, well it seems that Democrats can't even decide whether rescinding the tax cuts on people that make over $250,000 a year in order to slash the deficit by close to a trillion dollars and do something that is incredibly popular, is a good idea or not.

But aside from the political or economic reasons, there's one really important reason not to rescind the tax cuts as articulated by Rep. Mike McMahon (D, NY-13):

“I think it is a political liability because it’s a [bad] policy right now for the economy and could have a bad impact on jobs,” said McMahon…“A working couple making $250,000 is barely making ends meet,” he said.

Ah yes, poor little rich. My heart goes out to the top 2% of earners in this country who are making a minimum of five times that national median income. How will they muddle through if their tax rates are restored to the levels that existed during the greatest economic expansion in our nation's history?

I'm with him. During these trying economic conditions can't we just, for once in this nation's history, look out for rich people instead of everyone else? Think of the children. As Michael Steele told us, "a million dollars is not a lot of money". So just imagine how little $250,000 is. For the sake of our economic and social betters, don't do this.

Money grubbing

If you ever wanted a great example of the mind shattering stupidity and the open corruption within our political system, yesterday was a good day for you. Over the past few years financial giants and banks have been giving copious amounts of money to Democrats. Why? Because Democrats were in power and most of the places the financial sector of our country is headquartered in is represented by two Democratic Senators and a bunch of Democrat House members. But, sensing a change in their political fortunes, Republicans saw an opportunity to make their own case that they were the true party of the banks and financial services sector and that all that filthy lucre should be getting dumped into their coffers. And they decided that this case should be made publicly, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama's efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.
...
"I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer's remorse on Wall Street," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the second-ranking House Republican and a top Wall Street fund-raiser for his party.

Great news for Democrats, right? I mean the top two ranking members of the House GOP openly begging bailed out companies for donations by pointing out how helpful their party had been to killing reforms... just before they were about to start another round of efforts to kill the big financial reform package that will come up? I mean how could an opposing party take that kind of obvious misstep and not have it cheaply exploited by flagging Democrats in order to whip up poulist rage, support for their reform package, and to remind people just what kind of government the GOP likes to run?

You forgot I was talking about the Democratic party, right?

Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said he could think of two specific examples offhand of why Wall Street is better off with Democrats: the bailout and the stimulus.
...
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) also said that his party deserves the support of the industry based across the river from his home state. Wall Street, he said, shouldn't run from Democrats because of some heated rhetoric, but rather should look at the bigger picture.

Of course Democrats would rush out to say that Boehner is wrong, that Democrats are still the party of the massively unpopular group of companies that wrecked the economy. Well done. At least Barney Frank had the foresight to realize that Cantor and Boehner had made a mistake, but he seemed to be the only one, with most Democrats either rushing to defend their credentials as money whoring lickspittles for the industry or noting how they didn't want to make a political issue out of a massive political blunder.

So rest easy, our elected betters are out there engaged in a pitched and heated battle... to see who is a more worthy servant of the financial sector and deserving of their golden blessings. Isn't it a great country we have?

Asshole advocates for asshole

With the confirmation of Ben Bernanke seeming to take a happy little detour into the bottomless canyon of failure that is the United States Senate, a stifled yawn and cries of "No really, that's a shame, awwwwwwww" are coming up from most casual observers and critics of the Fed Chairman. Mostly that stems from the fact that he either completely failed to see or completely failed to act on the large housing bubble, seems intent on ignoring his mandate to attempt to get this country to full employment, and that his sole claim to fame as Fed Chairman seems to be that he hasn't fucked up during this recession. Which, seeing as how things are still shitty, isn't much of an endorsement.

But there are people coming to Ben's defense. It's just a shame it's another guy everyone thinks is fucking up.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned that the financial markets would view a Senate rejection of Ben Bernanke's renomination as "very troubling" but said he's sure the embattled Federal Reserve chairman will prevail.
...
"He's done a remarkable job of helping steer this economy out of the great recession. And I think he'll play a very important role in helping in the success of our efforts to try to make sure we are bringing this economy back to durable growth."

Asked about possible market reaction to a defeat, Geithner said: "I think the markets would view that as a very troubling thing to the economy as a whole."

First off? This country: not steered out of a recession. Point of fact: still in recession. Point of other fact: looks to be in recession for foreseeable future. Second point: country is not being brought back to durable growth.

And threats of a Wall Street tantrum, also echoed in this Washington Post editorial that echoes the same line of bullshit Geithner is slinging? Well I imagine they would be pretty pissed off if a guy who has been looking out for them and only them was suddenly out of a job, but I'm not that concerned about their feelings. I have this bizarre idea that the economy isn't some GDP number or stock market number; that the economy is about the relative financial health and stability of the people in the economy.

Now I know when Bernanke was made our Infallible Money Jesus he, like those who came before him, ceased to be a mere mortal as his brain became attuned to what our financial Gods wanted and his proclamations became unerring law. But people seem to look at the results of his tenure, not like what they see, and want a guy who was, you know, ahead of the curve and maybe interested in their problems. 10% unemployment does irrational things like that. It's this foreign concept some refer to as "holding people responsible for their performance." We don't do it too often with financial leaders, so I can see why it's such a shock it might be happening to Benny.

I know it's hard to understand, but there was a time in this country when Ben Bernanke wasn't the head of the Fed. Time still flowed forwards and the fabric of the universe was still held together. I'm just saying I think it might be possible, nay probable, that the universe won't compress itself into a singularity if Ben Bernanke has to return to Princeton and he gets replaced by someone who gives a fuck about things that aren't massively giant financial corporations. But, then again, I've been wrong before.

Same old, same old

It's hard to notice the battle going on over financial reform, what with our attention focused on the two most important issues of the day: the Tonight Show battle and various old white men coming up with new ways to say "fuck those darkies." But it seems that financial reform is going to go the way of health reform and the stimulus, where the bill starts off in a weak compromised position, is further compromised and weakened in an attempt to placate industry complaints, and is finally completely gutted when a hugely popular initiative that also serves as the most effective part of the reform is killed because it just benefits regular people a little too much.

The new shiny toy that Americans are deemed too childish to ever be allowed? The Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Because why would consumers need protection from financial companies? But at least one person is sounding the alarm bells and waving red flags: Elizabeth Warren.

Under pressure from big banks fighting hard to kill or weaken it, senators are said to be discussing downgrading the CFPA from an independent agency to something less than that.
...
"The CFPA is the best indicator of whether Congress will reform Wall Street or whether it will continue to give Wall Street whatever it wants," she told Reuters in an interview.
...
The problem is that a strong CFPA directly threatens the banks' ability to sell confusing, deceptive, fee-heavy financial products that generate huge profits, Warren said.
...
"Right now we're writing the final chapter in this story. It will show whether we're going back to the first move, letting the industry write the rules again, or whether the crisis actually changed something."

One does appreciate the lengths with which Warren is going to explain that an independent government organization with power to regulate and shield Americans from abusive subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and other noxious shit that the financial industry used to loot money out of the general public... is a good idea. It's just a damn shame she's doing it with logic and a sense that what she's saying is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.

That's not the way government works. See one person yells "I have an obvious good idea that clearly helps our current situation", then business yells "But, but, but... profits"and then our elected betters decide that to err on the safe side they better listen to big business and, hell, just let them write the regulations in the first place.

So let's see, on one side we have a smart woman who has been at the forefront of this crisis warning people about the various dangers swirling around and advocating for serious, common sense measures to protect the country from falling into the same economic trap. On the other side we have the people who caused this mess, arguing that the status quo must be maintained so that they can cause all the same problems again. Gee, I wonder who will win that battle?

Still, nice try Elizabeth. Try not to gloat too hard when we fall into the same financial canyon again and the whole "who could have foreseen" wailing starts up again.

Broken In Brief: Goldman to add opulence stipulations to bonuses

NEW YORK--As they carefully weigh the impact of impending bonuses on public opinion, the nation's investment banks are considering policies that would restrict the opulence of what may goods and services may be purchased by bonus money.

As the New York Times reported today, Goldman-Sachs is pondering a program that would require a certain percentage of all bonuses go to charity. However, anticipating a substantial public backlash in the wake of a government bailout last year, sources say the firm is willing to go much further.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they put dozens of riders on the bonus checks," said a source close to the discussion, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of murderous reprisal by the banking giant.

"I've been privy to discussions of policies that would limit bonus-related spending on mistresses, private school tuition, country club dues, gold-plated coke straws, fourth and fifth homes, and ammunition used exclusively to hunt homeless people for sport," said the source.

The current financial climate has already forced Goldman to advise a move from their current bonus stipulation of "spend like God" to "spend like a non-Christian God". This come after the company had already retreated from the turn-of-the-century policy of "spend like God's rich boss". Initial estimates have the scale being ratcheted down even further to "spend like a 1920's robber baron" or "spend like a foppish, 17th century English duke" in an attempt to show some measure of humility.

While Goldman is not expected to announce the bonuses, nor any regulations applied to them, until later this month, rumors are also circulating that the firm will curtail bonus expenditures on wine cellar expansion, 24 karat water fixtures or toilets, Kobe Specials, adolescent boy torture dens, and yachts christened 'Stimulus Bitch'."

Quote of the day

From today's Washington Post story on e-mails from inside AIG during that whole period where they were destroying the world economy, comes a little gem from AIGFP executive Tom Athan on how much fun he wasn't having.

In late July, Goldman Sachs, one of the firm's largest trading partners, challenged Financial Products' numbers, asserting that Goldman's calculations showed a significant drop in the swaps' value. That drop, Goldman contended, triggered provisions in the swaps contracts requiring AIG to post hundreds of millions of dollars in collateral to protect Goldman against the apparent escalation in risk.

"They are not budging and are acting irrational," Tom Athan, a Financial Products executive, wrote on Aug. 2 to Forster after a tense conference call with Goldman employees.
...
Athan added, "This isn't what I signed up [for]. Where are the big trades, high fives and celebratory closing dinners you promised?"

Awwww, poor baby. The man signed up for lobster and caviar in the champagne room and and he got was obscenely rich off schemes that bankrupted the planet, the repercussions of which he then had actually deal with as part of his job. Oh the indignity! Oh the unfairness!

Perhaps it has just slipped my mind, but is there anyone in the whole financial and banking industries that has come off looking... well I won't say 'good', but looking reasonably like something that resembles a human being and not some sort of cold blooded, underground dwelling reptoid creature that feasts on misery and toddlers that accidentally stray too far from their parents? I'm not asking for much, perhaps an executive who killed himself and mentioned the word "shame" in his suicide note or a Goldman-Sachs rep who gave a homeless guy in excess of a dollar while cameras were rolling. Something, because otherwise I'm thinking there isn't one.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.18

U.S. training plan: Read first, shoot later
From liberal rag Stars and Stripes, comes a look at how the US is using literacy training to get people into the Afghan army and police, while also using a desire to get into the Afghan military and police as a way to spread literacy. We still pay less than the Taliban does, but we are giving them job skills. Shame we can't do it for anything cheaper than an extra hundred billion.

The sports-entertainment crossover: it's sublimely funny. Just ask speedskating savior Stephen Colbert
Sports Illustrated takes a look at Stephen Colbert's successful quest to save the US speed skating team through sponsorship and what it might mean for the future of Olympic sponsorship. All part of the new issue of SI that features Colbert on the cover... in a speed skating spandex suit. This is going to be the best Olympic sponsorship by a comedy program since SCTV sponsored the Canadian men's two man luge team.

In 2010, The Civilian Space Industry Finally Takes Off
It's almost at that point in time where we're starting to get past that point all our favorite sci-fi TV, movies, and books described as "the future" and into that part they called "the distant future". What do we have to show for it? The ability to watch porn anywhere and HDTV. No moon bases and nothing that even remotely hovers in a car. But 2010 is the year which we can also pay billionaires for the right to rocket our asses up into low orbit, to feel a sensation that Buzz Aldrin and Alan Shepard got tired of describing three decades ago. The future is slowly creeping up, it's just a shame that it's more in the "carnival ride" aspects of the future and not the "to boldly go..." ones.

Collider Sets Record, and Europe Takes U.S.’s Lead
Well the Large Hadron Collider is up and running and while it isn't yet up to the task of killing God or crushing Europe into a singularity, it is up to the task of rubbing America's nose in shit. It has already set the record for accelerating protons (to 1.2 trillion volts), for number and speed of collisions, for the number of particle physicists in one room named Jens, for the slowest particle on record, the largest particle on record, most PhD's at a nude science kegger, and most appearances of the "particle physicists do it with momentum and position" bumper sticker. Here's congratulating them on their serious endeavors.

People finally realize Facebook intends to make money off of their data
Yeah, Facebook is starting to become mildly evil in regards to privacy, attempting to make money, and making everything on the site public. Turns out that you can't expect Facebook to exist forever without trying to make a buck of your info. Social media isn't private, especially free social media. Shocking, I know. However, this will help you stalk 15 year-olds and ex-girlfriends you are convinced still love you without a restraining order entering into it. So, that's a plus.

Obama's Big Sellout
Matt Taibbi's big Rolling Stone piece on the Obama Administration and that whole thing where we intended to bail out banks and financial institutions while providing increased scrutiny and oversight before turning our attention to the American people, before we promptly forgot the whole scrutiny, oversight, and American people parts. He's probably a little too focused on Obama and Bob Rubin and not the collection of money humpers in Congress, but it is another thorough indictment of the way this country works. Shame he used the title "Obama's Big Sellout", what's he going to use for his article detailing the health care debacle?

Showing us who's the boss

Yesterday we heard from Larry Summers, talking about how, in the end, Wall Street will do what's right for the American people because "we were there for them." Well, that statement also happened to coincide with a meeting the President was having with the major heads of financial corporations on things like executive compensation, new regulations, and lending. Thankfully, a few of our financial betters decided to show just how thankful they were.

President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday.

He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup.

Their excuse? “Inclement weather,” according to the White House. More precisely, fog delayed flights into Reagan National Airport.

Awww, fog. Shame there isn't a high speed rail system connecting the two cities, just as it's also a shame that the fog was only bad enough for those three not to make it out of New York.I guess there just wasn't a sense of urgency, seeing as they weren't going to be getting any more billions in return for showing up.

On the bright side, they are saying there has to be major financial reforms. Sure, the armies of lobbyists they pay and their Congressional toadies are saying something else, but the CEO's are pretending really hard. In the end, isn't that repayment enough? Isn't putting up a thin candy shell of humility, gratitude, and claims that you're ready to act like humans again "doing what's right'? It'll just makes the loophole riddled bill that Congress passes and Wall Street loves easier to swallow. Imagine how hard that bill would be to take if these CEO's acted likes assholes the entire way through the process?

Next time make more of an effort to catch a plane: it makes it easier for us to pretend you care. Our psyches are fragile enough as it is, what with lending dried up and no jobs. We need some phony showmanship, so we can at least pretend we got something out of the global financial apocalypse. Can't you at least give us that?