Tag Archives: Corruption

Washington Post publisher apologizes for auctioning influence

“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Post’s publisher apologized to readers Sunday for a plan to charge business leaders and lobbyists for intimate dinner discussions with government officials and the newspaper’s journalists.

A flier surfaced last week promoting a plan to charge $25,000 to sponsor one of a series of dinner parties that would include off-the-record conversations with Post journalists and access to Washington insiders. The series was canceled Thursday.” (Read more from finance.yahoo.com)

700 NYC teachers are paid to do nothing

Such are the miracles of government-run education.

“Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that’s what they want to do.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its ‘rubber rooms’ — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.

‘You just basically sit there for eight hours,’ said Orlando Ramos, who spent seven months in a rubber room, officially known as a temporary reassignment center, in 2004-05.” (Read more from news.yahoo.com)

Captain Morgan Rum got $2.7 Billion Payout from TARP

I will never drink Captain Morgan Rum. I will never drive a GM car.

“In June 2008, U.S. Virgin Islands Governor John deJongh Jr. agreed to give London-based Diageo Plc billions of dollars in tax incentives to move its production of Captain Morgan rum from one U.S. island — Puerto Rico — to another, namely St. Croix.

DeJongh says he had no idea his deal would help make the world’s largest liquor distiller the most unlikely beneficiary of the emergency Troubled Asset Relief Program approved by Congress just four months later.” (Read more from crooksandliars.com)

TARP loses $159 Billion (so far)

This post is dedicated to all my Obama-supporting friends who told me we needed to prevent our financial system from collapsing, too big to fail, what about the children, etc . . .

“Recall the number of times that government officials told taxpayers that we would make money on investments in AIG and the like. Well, so far we’ve lost $159 billion dollars across all our TARP investments. The loss is calculated as the difference in funds committed and allocated to securities and the market value of those securities. That loss represents 36% of the funds committed and actually allocated.

Not that anybody in the media or the financial industry would want you to know that.”

Taibbi’s Rolling Stone Article

A friend recently called my attention to Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone Article, “The Great American Bubble Machine.” Read it here.

Taibbi knows little about economics, and comes down on the wrong side of the most important question raised by our economic crisis – freedom or government?

For example, he writes: “an extremely unfortunate loophole in tbe system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a Society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.”

This is bullshit. We should not condemn free markets until we’ve given them a chance.

His understanding of the causes of the Great Depression is completely anemic (no mention of inflationary monetary policies), and his explanation of how Goldman cheats the world makes no sense.

Matt Taibbi’s worst offense is calling for more regulation to “protect” us from the likes of Goldman. Regulation is exactly what got us here.

Sure, if banks commit fraud we need the government to put them in jail, but beyond that, all we need to do is let the fuckers go bankrupt when they get caught holding loans which should never have been made.

It’s completely schizophrenic for the government to subsidize bad loans (HUD, Freddie, Fannie), then hand the banks billions of tax-payer dollars (TARP), then say the problem is too much freedom. In a free market, irresponsible companies go bankrupt.

So Taibbi fails.

He does deserve praise for a couple things though – demonstrating the pervasiveness of Goldman Sachs alumni throughout our government and the banking world at large, and calling attention to Goldman Sachs, and evil, evil company. His criticism should be directed to their influence over the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, and policies which transfer our wealth to likes of Goldman.

One very good point he makes, is connecting Goldman to Cap & Trade – the hideous bit of legislation which just passed our Congress in order to “save” us from Global Wharming. It’s another big scam.

See Also: Taibbi responds to Goldman’s criticism of his article.

Fed engaged in “cover-up” of BofA-Merrill deal-lawmaker

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve sought to hide its extensive involvement and concerns about Bank of America Corp’s (BAC.N) acquisition of Merrill Lynch amid the latter’s worsening financial condition, a top Republican congressman said on Wednesday.

‘The committee has already learned that Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve made inappropriate threats to fire Bank of America management unless they went ahead with the “shotgun wedding” that was the Merrill Lynch acquisition,’ Rep. Darrell Issa of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said in a statement released to Reuters.

‘The Federal Reserve also engaged in a cover-up and deliberately hid concerns and pertinent details regarding the merger from other federal regulatory agencies,’ the statement said.

The committee has obtained a number of emails and documents from the U.S. central bank about its behind-the-scenes role in the merger, according to sources familiar with documents.” (Read more from reuters.com)

HR 1207?

‘Craven bumlicking ass-goblin’ calls Hank Paulson a national hero

Fantastic catch by trueslant.com:

“

By Evan Newmark

Hank Paulson is a national hero.

I said it last October and I’m sticking by it. And now, there’s actual evidence to back me up. The TARP bailout worked. The Wall Street crisis is over.

via Mean Street: It’s Time to Enshrine Hank Paulson as National Hero – Deal Journal – WSJ.

So here’s the letter I wrote to the Wall Street Journal after reading Evan Newmark’s paean to Hank Paulson last week:

Dear WSJ,

Just out of curiosity — did Evan Newmark ever work for Goldman, Sachs? And if the answer to the question is yes, don’t you think that might have been a good fact to disclose before he fellated Hank Paulson in his “Mean Street” column?

Sincerely,
Matt Taibbi

I didn’t get an answer, which I guess is not surprising. But in the interim I found out that Newmark did, indeed, work for Goldman. I find it funny that a business journalist has to disclose if he’s invested in this or that stock, or short this or that security, before a newspaper will allow him to have an opinion about anything even distantly related to that company — but you don’t need to disclose anything if all you’re doing is kissing your former boss’s ass.

Can you imagine what a craven, bumlicking ass-goblin you’d have to be to get a job working for the Wall Street Journal, not mention up front that you used to be a Goldman, Sachs managing director, and then write a lengthy article calling your former boss a ‘national hero’?”

Top House lawmakers had considerable holdings in major financial institutions that took billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts

This is a direct consequence of too much government power. If, in the name of stability, or to prevent a so-called disaster, or to help the poor, we give the government the power to decide which incompetent banks survive, the opportunists in government will use the power to take care of their own investments. We did, and they did. The crooks are in charge.

Don’t let the media fool you into believing government is the thin line keeping evil businessmen from harming us. Government, and their self-serving collusion with business is the problem. Freedom is the solution.

“From stock holdings to retirement funds to mortgages, more than 20 House leaders and members of the House Financial Services Committee had large personal stakes in the Wall Street powerhouses whose collapse last year led to an unprecedented government intervention in the marketplace. In some instances those lawmakers, like millions of other investors, sold their holdings at steep losses while others retained the stocks at greatly diminished value.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her husband lost hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in American International Group, which has received $170 billion in government loans and cash injections, making it by far the largest recipient of federal bailout dollars. Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his wife held stock, retirement plans and other investments worth at least $183,000 and as much as $495,000 in firms benefiting from federal government rescue efforts, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

At least 18 members of the House Financial Services Committee — which oversees the banking and housing industries at the core of the economic meltdown — held stock last year in firms that received federal bailout assistance, according to a review of the forms that were available yesterday.” (Read more from washingtonpost.com)

Treasury Toxic Asset Program Rife With Conflicts Of Interest

“The hiring of private firms to provide ‘independent’ advice to both the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest, according to a letter written by the Project on Governmental Oversight (POGO) and delivered to key members of Congress.

. . . .

‘POGO is concerned . . . about the conflicts of interest that could arise if these fund managers are also investing in the same types of assets for their private clients.'” (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)

The line bw government and business is now perverted. The best thing government can do is stay out of it, and leave us all alone.

On Social Security

“Social Security is a “pay-as-you-go” system. This means that when you work, the government takes your money and gives it to Social Security recipients. In order to get workers to accept this system, the government promises to take other people’s money and give it to you when you retire. Think of it as an exponentially larger version of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

As long as a lot of people die before collecting any benefits, or die without collecting many benefits, the system is financially sound. . . .

Each worker’s income below about $106,800 is taxed at a 12.4 percent rate. There are no deductions for this tax. All income is taxable income. Even those in the lowest income brackets have roughly one-eighth of their income taken from them to fund the Social Security system.

Few workers, however, understand the tax burden of the Social Security system. On their paychecks, they see that 6.2 percent of their gross pay goes to pay for Social Security. What they don’t see is that employers match this tax payment with an equal 6.2 percent payment. It may seem that employers are paying half of the Social Security taxes, but that’s not the case. Even though the employers are legally liable for one-half of the tax, they shift the tax onto workers in the form of lower gross wages. Therefore, the Social Security tax burden, 12.4 percent of each worker’s gross pay, falls on workers. Half of this burden is hidden from the workers.

Currently, the Social Security Administration is running a budget surplus. . . .

What has happened to this surplus? The SSA took in $180 billion more than it spent in 2008. However, the federal government spent this $180 billion on other programs. Since the funds were spent on something other than Social Security, the government declares that it loaned itself the $180 billion, calling such “lending” intragovernmental debt. . . .

Think of this type of lending for a moment. The federal government is in debt to itself. Compare this to debt in the private sector. No business declares that it’s deep in debt because it loaned itself money. It’s the same with families. Parents don’t lay awake at night trying to figure out how to repay the money they loaned themselves. The government, however, thinks that it makes perfect sense to collect $100 of tax revenue, spend the $100, and then declare that it now owes itself $100. This scheme is not limited to Social Security. Currently, federal intragovernmental debt for all programs totals $4.3 trillion. . . .

Making the system sustainable will require higher taxes or benefits reductions. These reductions could be achieved by either reducing the benefits per recipient or reducing the number of beneficiaries — say, by raising the minimum age requirements. The solution is to give workers a negative rate of return on the money that is taken from them. It would also help if some workers collected no benefits at all. Workers who are taxed and then die before collecting any benefits are a boon to the system. Maybe the federal government should rethink its war on tobacco.

This system is a massive income-redistribution scheme, taking one-eighth of most workers’ incomes. The total tax burden is hidden from the workers. The tax revenues have been used to cover the deficits in the rest of the government’s budgets, and the only way to make the system sustainable is to give the participants a negative rate of return on their money.

The Social Security system has run its course. It’s unfair and it’s economically destructive. It’s time for the program to be abolished.” (Read more at mises.org)

Note: The Social Security Act was signed into law August 14th, 1935 by FDR. In terms of liberty, the WWII generation was not our greatest, but our worst.

The Stress Tests Fail The Smell Test

“The results of the much-anticipated bank stress tests are finally set to be released on Thursday — after the markets close. But we can already give the Obama economic team a grade for the way the tests have been handled: F.

For starters, why the holdup in releasing the results? It’s been ten days since the Treasury Department and the Fed let the banks in on the preliminary results of the tests. So how come the public — you know, the ones who keep bailing out the banks — are still, ten days later, in the dark?

The reason is, the banks are using this time to negotiate how much information about their portfolios the hoi polloi will be privy to, and are trying to get the government to reconsider its analyses (which are already iffy, since they are based on the banks’ own estimates and on assumptions about the economy – including unemployment rates, and cumulative real estate and credit card losses — that are hardly stress-inducing).” (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)