Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

there was a surge of corporate-democracy activism in the wake of enron et al, which i assume is still going on but you don't hear much about it these days. it's been superseded by events, i guess. but it's still a major issue for the long term. shareholder power is potentially important to holding multinationals accountable, but at the moment it's a pretty toothless tiger.

what would be the marching slogans, morbz? "hey hey ho ho timothy geithner's gotta go"? "what do we want? nationalization! when we want it? now!" "no blood for collateralized debt obligations!" not very catchy.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Monday, March 23, 2009 10:13 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest

How about "No taxation without representation"? If anything the past 6 months have driven the point home that the government is going to spend their money in every wrong way possible, many times over, and with much public outcry. "Of the people, for the people" requires a larger and larger imagination as time goes on.

"their money" = "our money"

the outside chance of a global economic collapse is what's keeping the Obama Admin. from taking the boldest type of action with regard to the banks (e.g., nationalization)

It was said a while back, up there, but I fully agree with this statement and deplore the result. The chance must be taken, if only because no other course of action will cure the illness.

The chances of killing the economy beyond repair are quite vanishingly small. It is the fear of it that looms large. This fear is being taken advantage of by those who would stand to gain most from it, the executives at the banks who made the worst decisions in order to enrich themselves.

I never thought I would march in the streets demanding a government takeover of banks, but life is strange sometimes.

How banks and HFs will scam the TALF
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-banks-and-hedge-funds-will-scam-the-talf-2009-3

Aimless, have you read Brad DeLong's assessment of Treasury's plan? He likes it. I tried to digest it, but I'm just not getting parts of it. He also posted a specific response to Krugman.

like timid inaction doesn't up the chance of a global economic collapse??

that business insider post makes the plan sound like an expensive money-laundering scheme.

I bet you'd all like to read Matt Taibbi in RS?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover

In essence, Paulson used the bailout to transform the government into a giant bureaucracy of entitled assholedom, one that would socialize "toxic" risks but keep both the profits and the management of the bailed-out firms in private hands. Moreover, this whole process would be done in secret, away from the prying eyes of NASCAR dads, broke-ass liberals who read translations of French novels, subprime mortgage holders and other such financial losers....

None other than disgraced senator Ted Stevens was the poor sap who made the unpleasant discovery that if Congress didn't like the Fed handing trillions of dollars to banks without any oversight, Congress could apparently go fuck itself — or so said the law. When Stevens asked the GAO about what authority Congress has to monitor the Fed, he got back a letter citing an obscure statute that nobody had ever heard of before: the Accounting and Auditing Act of 1950. The relevant section, 31 USC 714(b), dictated that congressional audits of the Federal Reserve may not include "deliberations, decisions and actions on monetary policy matters." The exemption, as Foss notes, "basically includes everything." According to the law, in other words, the Fed simply cannot be audited by Congress. Or by anyone else, for that matter.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/oig/

Consistent with the Inspector General Act of 1978 (IG Act), as amended, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) will
conduct and supervise independent and objective audits, investigations, inspections, evaluations, and other reviews of Board programs and operations;

promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness within Board programs and operations;

prevent and detect fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the Board's programs and operations;

review existing and proposed legislation relating to the Board's programs and operations and make recommendations regarding possible improvements in such programs and operations; and

keep the Chairman and Congress fully and currently informed of problems.
Congress has also mandated additional responsibilities that have a significant impact on our resources and workloads. For example, the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (as amended) requires the Board's OIG to review Board supervision of failed financial institutions that result in a material loss to the bank insurance funds and produce, within six months of the loss, a report that includes possible suggestions for improvement in the Board's banking supervision practices. In the information technology arena, the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) provides a comprehensive framework for ensuring the effectiveness of security controls over information resources that support federal operations and assets. Consistent with FISMA requirements, we perform an annual independent evaluation of the Board's information security program and practices to include evaluating the effectiveness of security controls and techniques for selected information systems.

i just beat Matt Tabbi--do i get to work at RS

hey look the guy that Matt Tabbi quote re: The Federal Reserve being audited works for. . . Ron Paul. Really makes you think

"They're supposed to be temporary," says Paul-Martin Foss, an aide to Rep. Ron Paul. "But we keep getting notices every six months or so that they're being renewed. They just sort of quietly announce it."

i didnt realize youve taken on gabbneb & ethan's old work

work is supposed to be hard--that was too easy

i think youve lived in that Company Town too long

did you read what i posted--do you realize the Fed Reserve has an inspector general? please answer in the form of a nickname.

looks like legalese to me, zzzzzzzzzzzzz

can I stop making the payments on my credit cards yet?

Obama is a Leo (like me)...Here's his horoscope for the month of March...

It's time for you to really put a lot into your career this month, starting the 1st. You're ready to take it to the next level, but it won't get there unless you roll up your sleeves, put your head down, get some traction and push! If you've been working up a good sweat at work, you're entitled to a nice relaxing evening with friends on the 4th -- but don't get too wild. It could be time to tighten the belt on the 9th and 10th: You're ready to explore and begin some long-term savings strategies -- it won't hurt to be more economical and, right now, it could help a lot. Thanks to your regular workout routine, you've got a newfound sense of calm and quiet that could put a long-entrenched family dynamic in a new light on the 15th. What will you do with this information? Don't forget on the 20th that any well-oiled career should include time for physical exercise. You're in this for the long haul, so get to the gym! Your instincts are right on when you sense a toothy, long-tailed rodent lurking in a business proposition. Don't sign. It's not a good deal if you smelled a rat. Plan a lovely night out with friends on the 30th. You've all worked hard this month!

(just something trivial...not designed to derail the thread or bring the level of discourse to a new low or anything...ignore it if you want)

Plan a lovely night out with friends on the 30th. You've all worked hard this month!

Dinner with the Cheneys?

lol

what would be the marching slogans, morbz? "hey hey ho ho timothy geithner's gotta go"? "what do we want? nationalization! when we want it? now!" "no blood for collateralized debt obligations!" not very catchy.

Try "Break Up The Banks!" Rallies are being planned.

Is Maxine Waters retarded?

Who the hell would EVER vote for that woman?

what was that in reference to?

i'll take a stab -- her questioning today of geithner's goldman sachs ties?

uh guys

"China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/world/asia/24china.html?_r=1

i actually never thought i would live to see that headline.

i'd be interested to know what people her make of this. i'm tempted to see it as a counterpart to the chinese premiere's remark last week that he was "worried" about the dollar. it could be that this current statement (released in chinese and english) is simply to add a little fire to that, to goose the united states into taking all measures necessary to keep the dollar strong (when the temptation in this financial crisis, especially given the massive debt looming, is to let the dollar sink) and they actually have no intention of doing anything concrete about creating an alternative to the dollar

it's actually a pretty obvious geopolitical strategy, especially given how much US currency that China is sitting on.

But it's smoke and mirrors unless the US economy collapses.

hard to tell who looked dumber yesterday, maxine waters or michelle bachman

China concern-trolling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html

Haha, anyone feel sorry for this guy and his 'earnings'? It would've been more effective if he a. didn't mention the amount b. didn't make charity-giving into a passive aggressive act.

i don't feel sorry for him -- you really shouldn't expect $750,000 for doing work for a bankrupt company -- but some of his points are fair enough. that particular group being singled out as the villains of the global economy is obviously pretty silly.

hes kind of right but hes right in such a terribly dickish passive aggressive whiny way that i dont really care

i don't know if this was mentioned or not yet, but it sure makes me feel for wall street.

As for how he and his fellow Wall Streeters could still afford such afternoons, he said: “We all made so much money in the past five years, it doesn’t matter.”

A 29-year-old man who works for a large investment management firm and was at Bagatelle’s brunch one recent Saturday and at Merkato 55’s the next, put it another way: “If you’d asked me in October, I’d say it’d be a different situation, and I don’t think I’d be here. Then the government gave us $10 billion.”

While few analysts believe that the dollar will be replaced as the world’s dominant foreign exchange reserve anytime soon

These are different analysts than the ones that told us the economy was doing awesome for most of last year, right?

Though it does make me happy that China is against dollar inflation, the whole IMF/NWO global currency idea has always seemed kind of scary.

CHOCOLATE PRODUCTION IS UP

that's one of those 'ppl working on their sex lives in a downturn' things isn't it

LAYOFFS NECCESSARY TO COUNTER WORLD INFLATION THREAT, SAYS WORLD RESERVE CHAIRMAN

“If you’d asked me in October, I’d say it’d be a different situation, and I don’t think I’d be here. Then the government gave us $10 billion.”

kill em all, for real

check their hands for traces of caviar

'“If you’d asked me in October, I’d say it’d be a different situation, and I don’t think I’d be here. Then the government gave us $10 billion.”'

isn't he just saying that he still has a job? I mean this sounds bad at first, on the other hand, a bailout that continues to give people their salary doesn't come with strings attached w/r/t how they spend their salary. Note I didn't bother to read the actual article because I'm lazy.

interview with ex-Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill on last night's PBS Frontline Ten Trillion and Counting was depressing as hell. transcript here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tentrillion/interviews/oneill.html

I favor wasteful and capricious spending by the wealthy -- it's the best way to get that money into the hands of the middle class.

Overpriced stuff like bottle service is like a de facto prestige tax. I like it.

I was at the Treasury as the secretary from Jan. 20, 2001 until I got fired at the end of November 2002. I got fired for several reasons, including (that) I kept saying, "I'm looking at all these intelligence reports, and I don't find anything in here that rises to the level of evidence of weapons of mass destruction." ...

In addition to that, as President Bush was getting ready to recommend another tax cut beginning in early 2002, I said we shouldn't have another tax cut. ... I said we could have another 9/11, and if (we) did, it could cost us $100 billion easily.

The 10,000-page tax code, (is) proof we're not an intelligent people, and it desperately needs to be reformed. And it will take some money to smooth the transition from 10,000 pages to 10 pages that (the American people) can understand and believe in.

We need to fix Social Security and Medicare, and that's going to take a fair amount of money to do those things, ... so we shouldn't have a tax cut. And I kept saying it to the point that finally ... I got fired. So it's not really true that Barney Frank can say nobody raised it. I raised it at the highest levels of government. When I went to Congress to testify, I raised these issues with them. There were no takers.

I am interested in what that must have been like for you personally. Is it the kind of thing where Paul O'Neill walks into a room and everybody stops talking? How did that go?

... At the beginning when I started saying these things, there were other people sitting around the circle who nodded their heads and said: "I agree with Paul. I think he's really right. I know something about the economy, and it sounds right to me." But it was noticeable, the more we moved into the summer, the early fall, nobody else was nodding their head anymore.

The president really didn't want to hear what I thought, which was his right. I was happy to be fired at the end of November 2002. I didn't want to be part of something I thought was fundamentally wrong. I would not have wanted to go and testify to the Congress that this was all a wonderful idea when I thought it was a terrible idea. And unfortunately I turned out to be right ....

Did you walk into the Oval Office at any point, you and the president, and say, "Mr. President, I've got to put it on the line: For the country and for the administration, this is a terrible idea"?

I just kept talking about the facts, you know. I didn't ever go in and say, "Hey, this is awful; I'm not going to be part of this." But I said over and over again what I just said to you about the reasons why we shouldn't do this.

To him?

Absolutely to him, multiple times.

What was the president's response?

You know, he didn't really respond.

Nothing?

No.

He had to say a word or two.

No, absolutely not. That was my experience the whole time I was there. I said lots of provocative things to him, and I never really got a response. ...

This issue of stimulus is a different issue. This is about borrowing money and spending it for things; it's not about recapitalizing the financial system. So let's use some numbers. Right now we have, arguably, 10 million unemployed people. So if we said we were going to give every one of those 10 million people $40,000 a year for the next couple of years while we're in this ditch, how much would that cost us? Well, let's see: 10 million times 40,000 -- that's $400 billion. So if we're going to do $700 billion, what are we going to do with the other $300 billion?

Hadn't thought of it like that. I like this plan sign me up.

Safire in 1998 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/16/opinion/essay-don-t-bank-on-it.html:

1. No private enterprise should be allowed to think of itself as ''too big to fail.'' Federal deposit insurance, protecting a bank's depositors, should not become a subsidy protecting the risks taken by non-banking affiliates. If a huge ''group'' runs into trouble, it should take the bank down with it; no taxpayer bailouts should allow executives or stockholders to relax.