The Weight

Old Postings Scattered About

2009-12-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

I decided to do something constructive over the short winter break. Collect up my scattered writing (attempts) from other blog sites. These posts go back awhile. On other sites, I often tailored content to the readers of the blog. If you ventured out of a blog's subject zone, you are often afforded little tolerance for the transgression and some times harsh critique. Was that a polite enough description? I hope to update things weekly on subjects I view as important.

The Crushing of the Republic

I run down my blog roll daily. Most are independent sources, some foundations and such. Though I am careful about think tank type non profits. I do view the blogosphere as extremely crucial and beneficial to disseminating information outside of the control of the Corporate Owned News Propaganda Media (CONPM).

The Financial blogs in particular have played a crucial and outstanding role of critiquing the fabrications straight out of the government and Wall Street. The Financial blogs have uncovered information and punched holes in the worthless corporate financial press that has been an embarrassment to the old world propaganda machines like NYT, WSJ and CNBC. They were first ignored, then ridiculed and now patronized and attacked. Did not some peace guy say something about that?

The criticism is that blogs are unreliable sources of information full of crack pots and conspiracy theorists... see "then ridicule"... In the last two years who is more unreliable? Who has been caught wrong? Printing bogus facts easily checked by amateurs (You NYT)? Asleep at the wheel? Printing government, Wall Street propaganda with out questioning any of it? Sucking up for career furtherment? Losing readership and going bankrupt in droves? Broadcasting diversionary spin and garbage rather than the real facts of political and financial leadership failure?

That is right. The Main Stream Corporate Media Whores.

We all have seen during this financial crisis, which is really a political crisis, that the propaganda machine is in overdrive to convince you the reality you feel, see and experience is not real. The US political class is an abject failure of greed and corruption. The greed and corruption of the elites who own the political is now accelerating exponentially. Corporate owned governance is the official US political structure driven by legalized campaign bribes and corporate Wall Street out and out ownership of teh lackey political class. Any one who has opened their eyes can see that there is little difference between the two corporate shill parties.

We Have To Find A Third Party Alternative

The corruption is systemic. It has been years in the building. We are now clearly finished with the Republic phase of this empire. We have moved into the Imperial phase of lunatic emperors, empire overreach, imperial wars to benefit the oligarchy, systemic corruption and looting of any and every public asset and general debauchery by the ruling moneyed elite.

An optimist you say. Thanks for reading.
PI

Wall Street Banks Walking Away From Under Water Mortgages: Tells US Public Not To

2009-12-17T15:32:00.000-08:00

Originally Posted on TPM--Dec 17, 2009--15:32:06

Photo: Courtesy Bloomberg

Morgan Stanley, long time Wall Street investment house with a history of regulatory fines and fraudulent activity, is walking away from mortgages on 5 San Francisco commercial properties. Morgan Stanley owes $8 billion on the five office buildings purchased at the top of the market in 2007 in the highly overpriced real estate market of bubble central, California. This latest Morgan Stanley act of borrower irresponsibility is in addition to a walk away default on a $6.5 billion 17 million square feet of office buildings to Barclays Capital. The reason: The mortgages are 50% underwater.

According to Bloomberg:

Morgan Stanley to Give Up 5 San Francisco Towers Bought at Peak

Alyson Barnes a Morgan Stanley spokeswoman, said yesterday, "This isn't a default or foreclosure situation. We are going to give them the properties to get out of the loan obligation."

Morgan Stanley: TARP Bailout-ee
Morgan Stanley bled US tax payers for $10 billion in TARP money in 2008. Morgan Stanley, like the infamous Goldman Sachs, are hedge funds that bellied up to the Fed's deposit bank discount window by fraudulently claiming to be deposit banks. The Fed approved the regulatory change September 21, 2008, for "Friends of Hank Paulson and Lloyd "Doin' God's Work" Blankfein" while denying the same status to Goldman competitor Lehman Brothers.

Wall Street has tried to lay the blame for the financial fiasco of securitization and Wall Street MBS fraud continually on "irresponsible people who took out mortgages they could not afford."
The hypocrisy of Wall Street banks shirking their loan obligations and walking away simply "to get out of the loan obligation" is undeniable to anyone, even the tone deaf Obama administration's "No Wall Street banker Left Behind" crowd.
According to Bloomberg:

The firm last month agreed to surrender 17 million square feet of office buildings to Barclays Capital after acquiring them for $6.5 billion in 2007 from Crescent Real Estate Equities. U.S. commercial real estate prices have dropped 43 percent from October 2007's peak, Moody's Investors Service said last month.

"This isn't a default or foreclosure situation," Barnes said. "We are going to give them the properties to get out of the loan obligation."

Bill at Calculated Risk examines research on strategic defaults among US residential mortgages for the same reason as Morgan Stanley. Their property is worth far less than the loan.

Does Morgan Stanley "Walking Away" From CRE Contribute to Strategic Defaults?

Note that Morgan Stanley is current on the loan and is not in foreclosure. They are simply "walking away" because the buildings are worth less than the amount owed.

And that remains the greatest fear - and it probably doesn't help that companies like Morgan Stanley are walking away from commercial buildings. As the researchers noted, the more people hear about strategic defaults, the more willing they are to walk away. Zingales was quoted in the WSJ earlier this year.

I wonder if hearing about "rich" banks that are paying "large" bonuses walking away from commercial buildings also weakens the social pressure?

The genius investors at Morgan Stanley have lost nearly 50% on the investments, plan to relinquish five San Francisco office buildings to its lender two years after purchasing them. According to Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley year-end bonuses in 2007 were estimated jumped to $9.93 billion from $8.39 billion, about 60 percent of total compensation on the investments down 50% that the Wall Street bank away from.

Morgan Stanley BIG TIME BONUSES for Loser Investors

According to AG Cuomo's investigation of Wall Street banks released July 2009, "Morgan Stanley earned $1.7 billion and paid $4.5 billion in bonuses" in 2008 on these brilliant investments among other activities. According to the UK Telegraph in October 2009:

Morgan Stanley bonus pool hits $3 billion despite 91% drop in profits

Investment bank Morgan Stanley has more than doubled the share of revenues it will hand out in pay and bonuses to its 62,000-strong army of bankers and brokers despite a 91pc drop in profits last quarter.

Morgan Stanley saw a slide in profits from $7.7 billion in the three months to September last year to $757 million in the same period this year.

There seems to be plenty of money at Morgan Stanley to pay everything BUT the mortgage:

2007 Bonus Compensation =    $9.93 billion
2008 Bonus Compensation =    $4.50 billion
2009 Bonus Compensation =    $3.00 billion
(Oct estimate)

Where do I get a job screwing up royal and not only not get fired... but get a bonus? If I were a teacher and lost half my students, failed or dropped out... would you pay me a bonus or fire me?

Wall Street Can Walk Away America, Not You

While Wall Street shames people to continue "their moral obligation to honor their mortgages and NOT walk away," the incredible hypocrisy of the Wall Street banks, their backers at the Fed and the Obama administration are becoming glaringly obvious.

One set of rules for the financial oligarchy and the politicians and regulators they buy, another set of rules for the American public they fleece.

Obama's Wall Street no reform "Reform" -- "No Wall Street Banker Left Behind."

What say you Mr. Change? Now that is Hypocrisy you can believe in.

Evo Morales: The REAL 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner

2009-12-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on TPM-- Dec 12, 2009 -- 12:17 PM

Photo: Courtesy Wiki

President Evo Morales of Bolivia, we are honored to have you here to accept the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace. As the first person of indigenous decent to occupy the democratically elected position of President of Bolivia, your tireless work on behalf the poorest citizens in your country for equality, fighting poverty, pushing for economic fairness and land reform initially brought your nomination before this committee.

President Morales it was your opposition to repression, your outspoken criticism of militarism and violence, your unwavering support of the democratically elected President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya in the face of the illegal, heinous coup and your efforts for peace that have inspired the world. These are the actions, President Morales that have brought you here tonight.

At great personal risk, you have time and time again battled military juntas and European descendant oligarchies within your own country and militarily and covert assaults from the centralized security apparatus of the world's corporate hegemonic power. You have been a long time farmer and union farm activist highly respected among your peers.

You have answered the call of your people time and again to public service. In that public service, you have remained true to your principles and held a moral compass by implementing the very policies to your people that you have campaigned upon. Promises of "change," duplicity, bait and switch politics and Faustian bargains for power know not Evo Morales.

There was a sign by a member of the public at the recent summit in Copenhagen, "Politicians talk, Leaders act." While others are lauded for their fine speeches, you President Morales are a leader who not only speaks with wisdom but acts with wisdom.

President Morales, your bravery has been steadfast in your support of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya who was removed in a coup close to home instigated by dominate multinational companies and the centralized security apparatus of the world's corporate hegemonic power. Even while under continued terror from the same apparatus throughout your presidency beginning in January 2006, you have remained an outspoken proponent of democracy in Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and El Salvador and every country in Latin America.

As a farm union activist, you have defended the right of indigenous farmers to grow coca for the traditional use in teas and herbal remedies that have been part of the culture of the indigenous peoples for thousands of years. You rightly recognize that it is the western cultures' chemical perversion of the natural coca plant and their hedonistic consumption of a perverse narcotic that is the problem. You further recognize that the "war" on this natural plant is in fact an excuse for a war of imperialism on the energy resources of countries like Bolivia by the world's corporate
hegemonic power.

As you stated before the UN General Assembly in September 2006:

"I should like to take this opportunity to speak of another historical injustice: the criminalization of the coca leaf. This coca leaf is green, not white, like cocaine. The coca leaf is symbolic of Andean culture, of the Andean environment and of the hopes of peoples. It is not acceptable that the coca leaf be legal for Coca-Cola and illegal for medicinal consumption not only in our country but throughout the world."

President Morals, your 2008 expulsion of agents undermining your democratically elected government, masquerading as "diplomats" of the world's corporate hegemonic power has been internationally vindicated by the Italian courts. Italian courts have convicted 30 agent provocateurs of the centralized security apparatus of the world's corporate hegemonic power
operating out of their embassy in Italy. The exposing by Italian justice of the criminal activates of kidnapping and torture by these agent provocateurs have shown your decision in expelling several "diplomats" of the embassy in your own country was fully justified.

Your exposing of the diplomatic corps in this embassy as housing a nest of spies under diplomatic immunity with the intent of carrying out violence and fomenting insurrection by means of state sponsored terrorism was a bold move risking your personal safety by the tentacles of the centralized security apparatus of the world's corporate hegemonic power.

President Morales, your economic reforms on behalf of the indigenous populations have met with success and the betterment of conditions for Bolivians as a whole. According to the internationally well respected Centerfor Economic Policy and Research:

"Bolivia's economic growth over the last four years has been higher than at any time in the last 30 years with projected growth for 2009 the highest in the Western Hemisphere - due to a series of government initiatives in recent years that have helped Bolivia to cope with the impact of the world recession."

"The Bolivian economy has done very well under President Evo Morales, and government policy has been key. None of this would have been possible without the government's regaining control of the country's natural resources."

None other than Joseph Stiglitz, the recipient of the Nobel Laureate and Memorial Prize in Economics Science winner in 2001 has stated:

"He (Morales) moved quickly away from the neoliberal policies of his predecessors to try to help his community, the vast majority of whom live below the poverty line.

In a time of skyrocketing commodity prices, Morales earned the ire of the oil companies and the envy of other Presidents in the region by renegotiating outdated energy contracts to earn more money for the country's coffers -- a portion of which he put toward increased health-care and social spending. He has resisted the temptations of his high position in favor of a low-key manner."

Resisting the temptations of your high position, President Morales, is a testament to your guiding ethical principals and your steadfast moral compass. The fate of those leaders who dare challenge the profits of the dominant multinational energy companies of the world's corporate hegemonic power is adverse and well known in world history.

This committee only need look at the failed military coup against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in 2002 by the European descendant elites fomented and financed by the centralized security apparatus of the world's corporate hegemonic power and of the fate of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq of Iran. Both state sponsored terrorist actions involved the control of the energy resources by the dominant multinational energy companies of the world's corporate hegemonic power.

In 1953 after nationalizing Iran's oil for the benefit of the Iranian people at the expense of British Petroleum and the dominant multinational energy companies, the "seven sisters," the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq was overthrown in a violent coup by the centralized security apparatus of the world's corporate hegemonic power in an act of state sponsored terrorism.

This act of anti democratic fascism by the world's corporate hegemonic power then installed one of the most vicious and brutal dictators in Iran for the next 25 years. Prime Minister Mosaddeq was arrested by the agents of the centralized security apparatus, imprisoned for 3 years and kept under house arrest for over a decade until his death. The world's corporate hegemonic power is responsible for installing a dictator who murdered and tortured thousands of innocent Iranians.

President Morales, by challenging the dominant multinational energy companies on behalf of your people, you have demonstrated unwavering bravery and commitment to the promises you made to your people for change. You have not shirked the promises of change you made to your people during elections, you have embraced the challenge and responsibilities that the burden of your promise of change brings. You have risen to the occasion President Morales. You have not faded in the face of your promises of change.

At further risk to your own safety, you have defied the multinational companies of the world's corporate hegemonic power, returning the fresh drinking water of Bolivia to your own people from the clutches of the privatizing schemes of the European descendant oligarchy at the behest of dominant multinational companies of the world's corporate hegemonic power.

President Morales, you pushed for land reform at the expense of the oligarchy decedents of Europeans that have exploited and impoverished the indigenous peoples of Bolivia. You have bravely faced down insurrection and treason by this oligarchy operating as clients of the world's corporate hegemonic power. You have tirelessly fought against the opposition to your programs of fair land reform and wrestling the rights of Bolivia's own natural gas resources away from the profiteering of your elite oligarchy and the multinational energy companies that dominate and direct the military force and intimidation of the world's corporate hegemonic power.

Evo Morales, you have never wavered from your commitment to the indigenous people of Bolivia, your commitment to equality and fairness. You have operated with ethical concern and moral guidance throughout your public life. Your commitment to peace, your actions for land reform and equality and your outspoken support of social justice movements throughout Latin American and the world brought your nomination before this committee.

President Evo Morales, you have inspired people throughout the world by your words and especially your deeds. We are honored to present you with the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Photo: Courtesy AFB, Getty

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Cartoon: Courtesy Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star

Mr. Slick Goes to Washington -- Wall Street Reform

2009-09-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at TPM --September 20, 2009, 11:19AM

Photo: Courtesy Truthdig.com

Robert Scheer: Obama'sPresidency Isn't Too Big to Fail

"He has blundered into a deepening quagmire in Afghanistan, has continued the Bush policy of buying off Wall Street hustlers instead of confronting them and is now on the cusp of bargaining away the so-called public option, the reform component of his health care program."

The New Democrat is the Old Republican. Just as the Old Republicans devolve into some sort of deranged regional Confederate Party full of Michael Douglas' "Falling Down" character, taking the perceived demise of the white male in society as some sort of personal attack on their world.

The religious fanatics populating the Old Republicans are an angry unintelligible mass of screamers without logic. Raised by not sparing the rod, these beaten little Christers are now lashing out in the anger as the adults of abused children. The abused become the abusers in Max Blumenthal's well researched analysis of the angry white mobs of the Christian right... the New Confederate Party.

The New Democrat is really the old Rubin-McAuliffe corporate Democrat. McAuliffe whose guiding political philosophy is "Hey pal, payola for me not the other guy's party..." witnessed for the first time in 2006 Democrats receiving more campaign bribes from corporations than the Republicans by 60% to 40% advantage. Pelosi and Reid behaved like it. Not able to find the votes to stop anything or for any traditional Democrats populace position promised in the elections. From 2006 to 2008, Reid and Pelosi's marching orders came from their corporate owners whose bidding was carefully followed with excuses to the public.

So why would Wall Street and corporate power hand $600 million for a presidential campaign to an obscure first term center from Illinois with political speeches like these?

"This is a verdict on the failed policies of the last eight years that said that we should strip away consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down."

"You've got to have somebody in Washington who is thinking about the middle class and not just those who can afford to hire lobbyists."

"It's not enough just to help those at the top. Prosperity is not just going to trickle down."

"The problem we have is that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die. They go to die because the lobbyists and special interests have a strangle-hold on the agenda in Washington."

Mr. Change, Presidential Debate,

University of Texas, Austin, February 21, 2008.

"We'll make it clear to the special interests that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over, because the American people are not the problem in this 21st century--they are the answer."

Mr. Change, Speech
Flint, MI, in "Change We Can Believe In," p.258-9 Jun 15, 2008.

Robert Scheer, the west coast Seymour Hirsch, hits the nail on the head finding the fatal flaw in the snow blower named Obama. Brand Obama is fading fast, about to be found out by the gullible American public as nothing more than the empty calories of a political slurpee in a wasteful plastic convenience store cup. Scheer is not alone in detailing the constant contradiction in the campaign rhetoric of Mr. Change versus the actions of the now elected Mr. Slick.

Regulation?

"Let's, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system. Sen. McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator. On the other hand, two years ago, I said that we've got a sub-prime lending crisis that has to be dealt with."

Mr. Change, Presidential Debate,
Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee, October 7, 2008.

According to Business Week's Chad Terhune and Robert Berner, the new Mr. Slick "save the economy policy" is reinflating the housing bubble using the FHA to spread new sub prime loans:

FHA-Backed Loans: The New Subprime

"Washington, meanwhile, has vastly expanded the availability of such taxpayer- backed loans as part of the emergency campaign to rescue the country's swooning economy."

"Their new strategy: taking advantage of a long-standing federal program designed to encourage homeownership by insuring mortgages for buyers of modest means."

"You read that correctly. Some of the same people who propelled us toward the housing market calamity are now seeking to profit by exploiting billions in federally insured mortgages."

The Rubinization of Mr. Change -- The Birth of Mr. Slick

"A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got to reregulate, and nothing happened."

Mr. Change, Presidential Debate,
University of Texas, Austin, February 21, 2008.

Photo: Courtesy Phil Stock World

"Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age."

"The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift."

"But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history..."

Barack Obama's Inaugural Address,
January 20, 2009.

Allow me to retort, Mr. President. 8 months ago you were sworn in with the high rhetoric of change and reigning in Wall Street's greed that had brought down the economy. Yet your solution was to send the compromised regulator Tim Geithner to Wall Street to bring back a plan. Take the Federal Reserve whose shareholders, Chase, Citi, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs are the very players who caused the destruction through fraud and criminality, have the Fed as the new super regulator.The problem is the Fed had the power to stem the fraud and corruptionand completely failed to do so. After all, look at who owns the Fed...

In response to Obama's speech on Wall Street, September 15, 2009. Professor of Economics, Columbia University, Joseph Stiglitz in the UK Guardian:

For all Obama's talk of overhaul, the US has failed to wind in Wall Street

"Last night Barack Obama defended his administration's response to the financial crisis, but the reality is that a year on from Lehmans' collapse, it has failed to take adequate steps to restrict institutions' size, their risk-taking, and their interconnectedness. Indeed, it has allowed the big banks to become even bigger - just as it has failed to stem the flow of profligate executive bonuses. Obama's call on Wall Street yesterday to support "the most ambitious overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression" is welcome - but the devil, as ever, will be in the detail."

"But the Obama administration has created a new concept: institutions too big to be resolved, too big for capital markets to provide the necessary discipline. The perverse incentives for excessive risk-taking at taxpayers' expense are even worse with the too-big-to-be-resolved banks than they are at the too-big-to-fail institutions. We have signed a blank cheque on the public purse. We have not circumscribed their gambling - indeed, they have access to funds from the Fed at close to zero interest rates, and it appears that "trading profits" have (besides "accounting" changes) become the major source of returns."

"I fear that our collective response has been mistaken and inadequate - that we may just have made matters worse. The financial sector would like us to believe that if only the Federal Reserve and the Treasury had leapt to the rescue of Lehman all would have been fine. Sheer nonsense. Lehmans was not a cause but a consequence: a consequence of flawed lending practices, and of inadequate oversight by regulators."

Professor William Black, Associate Professor, Economics and Law, University of Missouri, Kansas City was a deputy director at the former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. during the Reagan deregulation fueled savings and loan crises of the 1980s.

Professor Black HAS credibility because he is the man with THE record in the last banking scandal. In spite of repeated resistance and interference from the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, Black help round up Keating, corrupt Senators and brought criminal charges and 1,000 felony convictions for S&L insiders with about 700 doing jail time.

From Bill Moyers April 2009 interview with Professor Black, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS
Moyers' Introduction:

"William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri -- Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law..."

"Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC...and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement."

"Black developed the concept of "control fraud" -- frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a "weapon." Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined...and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae's former senior management."

The Interview:

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Geithner is charging, is covering up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it's going to take $2 trillion -- a trillion is a
thousand billion -- $2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they're allowing all the banks to report that they're not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can't be true. It can't be that they need $2 trillion, because they have masses losses, and that they're fine.

These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because...

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, Geithner has, was one of our nation's top regulators, during the entire subprime scandal, that I just described. He took absolutely no effective action. He gave no warning. He did nothing in response to the FBI warning that there was an epidemic of fraud. All this pig in the poke stuff happened under him. So, in his phrase about legacy assets. Well he's a failed legacy regulator.

BILL MOYERS: But he denies that he was a regulator. Let me show you some of his testimony before Congress. Take a look at this.
TIMOTHY GEITHNER: "I've never been a regulator, for better or worse. And I think you're right to say that we have to be very skeptical that regulation can solve all of these problems. We have parts of our system that are overwhelmed by regulation.

Overwhelmed by regulation! It wasn't the absence of regulation that was the problem, it was despite the presence of regulation you've got huge risks that build up.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, he may be right that he never regulated, but his job was to regulate. That was his mission statement... I think, first, the policies are substantively bad. Second, I think they completely lack integrity. Third, they violate the rule of law. This is being done just like Secretary Paulson did it. In violation of the law. We adopted a law after the Savings and Loan crisis, called the Prompt Corrective Action Law. And it requires them to close these institutions. And they're refusing to obey the law.

BILL MOYERS: In other words, they could have closed these banks without
nationalizing them?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, you do a receivership. No one -- Ronald Reagan did receiverships.Nobody called it nationalization.

BILL MOYERS: And that's a law?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: That's the law.

BILL MOYERS: So, Paulson could have done this? Geithner could do this?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Not could. Was mandated--

BILL MOYERS: By the law.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: By the law.

BILL MOYERS: This law, you're talking about.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: What the reason they give for not doing it?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: They ignore it. And nobody calls them on it.

As Barron's astutely points out in an April 2009 interview:
The Lessons of the S&L Crisis:

"We have failed bankers giving advice to failed regulators on how to deal with failed assets. How can it result in anything but failure?"

"If they are going to get any truthful investigation, the Democrats picked the wrong financial team. Tim Geithner, the current Secretary of the Treasury, and Larry Summers, chairman of the National Economic Council, were important architects of the problems. Geithner especially represents a failed regulator, having presided over the bailouts of major New York banks."

"Geithner has appropriated the language of his critics and of the forthright to support dishonesty. That is what's so appalling -- numbering himself among those who convey tough medicine when he is really pandering to the interests of a select group of banks who are on a first-name basis with Washington politicians."

As astute financial blogger Jesse from Jesses Café American notes:

Stock Market Rally: Shenanigans Abound

"Obama and his team have NO credibility for reform on Wall Street after their handling of Goldman Sachs and the AIG payouts."

"Inflation is good for financial assets, and we think another bubble is in the cards, at
least for now given Obama's unwillingness to reform, unless some exogenous event or actor intervenes."

Is Jesse alone? Analyst Larry Doyle from "Sense on Cents"
Whatever Happened to Financial Reform

"Today President Obama will make a campaign stop on Wall Street to promote his calls for financial regulatory reform. We will receive the standard platitudes. Obama will likely recruit a few high profile Wall Street executives to support his initiatives or lack thereof. The fact is, Wall Street has been working diligently to make
sure that ultimately "business as usual" carries the day."

Kevin Depew at Minnyanville, Five Things: The Myths of the Crisis

"Think about it this way. The word credit comes from the Latin "credere," which means, literally, "to believe, or to trust." That is really all you need to know about the modern financial system. When the credere is gone, the whole thing unravels, and it works both ways, from lender to borrower, and from borrower to lender. This is why monetary and fiscal policies aren't working."

"Well, unfortunately, we're rapidly moving right back to the same place we were before the real issues facing us in The Crisis became apparent. In other words, all that has happened is that the doctor (the government) has been successful in treating the symptoms of the disease (failed institutions and widespread insolvency), but in doing so the disease itself (too much debt) has actually worsened."

Wall Street Reform- Mr. Slick gets an "F"

Cartoon: By Mike Keefe, The Denver Post

"We are at a defining moment in our history, going through the worst financial crisis since the great depression..."

Mr. Change, Presidential Debate,
University of Mississippi, September 26, 2008.

Oh really? You could not tell by the Obama lack of action, the sin of omission.

So how does an eloquent speech delivering academically accomplished graduate from Harvard Law mislead those who voted for him on the true intent of his policies?

Like Reid and Pelois who have been in control of Congress since 2006 but yet just can't seem to find the votes on any of those supposed positions of the Democratic Party...

Mr. Change simply fails at all those promises of Wall Street reform, ending imperial wars for profit at tax payer expense and now the most stark failure to put forward any measure of health care reform. The New Democrats know who their corporate masters are and now do the bidding of Wall Street and corporate power by selling out the American public at every turn.

Mr. Change ran a campaign of implication. He IMPLIED to progressive voters that he was all about "fairness" and Wall Street reform. He campaigned repeatedly on the excess of greed and reform to help main street. He parsed his words, made vague implications.

Once elected he claimed we all just did not hear what he said... Now progressives may start to be getting the picture. Mr. Change is in fact Mr. Corporate, Mr. Tool of Wall Street.

Mr. Change is careful. He is a word parser and clever dealer in logic and implication when speaking. He continually tells those who voted for him that it is their fault they implied what was not there. The biggest and most useful weapon of Mr. Change for his Wall Street and Corporate masters against the American people is his sin of omission.

It is more important what Mr. Change DOES not do rather than continuing to buy the kool-aid and listen to those eloquent speeches of high rhetoric. He talks major reform but some how never acts or accomplishes. This is the pattern. Talk the big game but never do anything.

This has been the Pelosi/Reid MO since being given a majority in 2006. Mr. Change has embraced this style of inaction as cover for the looting of the American public by Wall Street, continuing foreign wars for corporate profit that bleed the American tax payer and kill the sons and daughters of the less advantaged.

Now what may be the final straw to the American public... Health Care Reform that wasn't. It won't kick in until 2013 once Mr. Change is safely reelected. Then the big screw turns. Simply look at the Willard "the Rat" Romney Massachusetts plan of forced public purchase of private policies with no reform of the corrupt health insurance industry. Premiums are going up at 10% a year including a 9% increase this year.

Even with the careful timing of the "big health care screw," progressives and independents must be starting to catch on. Mr. Change is in fact Mr. Slick, a flim flam man, a con artist a bull shitter. Of the big three campaign themes of Mr. Slick, the economy, Wall Street reform, ending unjust wars and health care "reform," the first big failure of Mr. Slick is lack of Wall Street reform.

Mr.Slick allowed his minions to use Fed monetary policy to flood the investment banks with capital. Being the greedy worms they are, Wall Street banks leveraged the cash like crazy and went on an equity market pumping binge. Summers et al do know one thing... higher stock prices mean higher consumer confidence.

As Summers and the boys love to trot out these two pointless statistics along with a host of BLS manipulated economic statisitics unemployment (way too low), GDP (way too high), CPI (way too low)... Is there a pattern here? Can you believe any statistic or green shoot report out of this government or corporate owned news media?

The Great Transformation: Mr. Change to Mr. Slick

Photo: Courtesy Jesse's Cafe Americain

Jesse: August 9, 2009,

US Equity Markets Look Dangerously Wobbly As Insiders Sell In Record Numbers

"The Obama Economics and Regulatory Team, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve, have accomplished no serious reform of the fiancial system. They have enabled the type of market inefficiency, soft fraud and price manipulation that is undermining global confidence in the integrity of US markets and financial products. And they have advanced a proposal to consolidate a huge amount of regulatory power under the Federal Reserve, a private banking agency that was at the root of our unfolding financial crisis.

The time has passed when Obama could have pointed to the past mistakes of his predecessors as the fault for our problems. Thanks to Tim Geithner, Barney Frank, and Larry Summers he now owns the financial crisis, and the coverups, policy errors,
scandals, conflicts of interest and bailouts that have occurred since he has taken office. His reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman most surely tied a bow on his ownership package for the crisis, which is in danger of becoming his 'financial New Orleans.'

Wall Street insiders and their enablers pig out on public money while the nation suffers. This is not change, this is business as usual."

Mr. Slick owes somebody something. The somebody is the masters of Wall Street. The something is the $600 million to run a Madison Avenue slick campaign to sell the people on the latest brand illusion.

Once upon a time Reagan and the conservative Republicans looked Madison Avenue slick thanks to the backing of Wall Street worm and CIA criminal Bill Casey and Alfred Bloomingdale. Reagan and his cronies looked smart, competent, man with the plan. In contrast, Mondale, Tip O'Neil and Michael Dukakis could not come up with a plan to tie their own shoes on time.

So what has changed? Now it is Democrats who appear Madison Avenue slick, smart, competent, men and women with the plan. By contrast Boehner (pronounced Bone-er) and Cantor can't even stand in front of the press with a budget plan that has any numbers inside... just a cartoon cover, a National Chairman so policy dumb and contradiction challenged that he makes less sense than the guests on Jerry Springer...

These are the same Republicans that looked so smart just two decades ago and Democrats that looked so dumb. It is the same people...people. So what changed? Nothing. Just the big money propaganda switched sides to buy the other brand and sell it to you as something new Madison Avenue style. It is working as the new brand of Kool-Aid, the super popular brand even in the face of over whelming evidence that the new Kool-Aid is just some cheap powder in a bag that is not to our benefit, just the benefit of elite wealth who own this government and the country.

It is in fact the same old soak the working class and screw us until we melt policy.

Mr. Slick says that is change you and I can believe in. Here is change I can believe in:

Photo: "We the Jury" Courtesy of Portfolio.com

If you got this far, thanks for reading.

Immigration Reform on the 4th: The People They Will Let into America These Days

2009-07-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

Cockburn Becomes US Citizen
Originally posted on TPM -- July, 4, 2009

From the Nation:

Alexander Cockburn... columnist and one of America's best-known radical journalists, was born in Scotland and grew up in Ireland.

Wait, they are letting radicals into this country? Radical journalists no less? Dick Cheney is right... This current administration is failing to protect America from these radicals.

From NNDB:

Alexander Cockburn (pronounced Coburn) is an expatriate Irishman living in Northern California as a radical leftist journalist.

Who is this guy? Father: Claud Cockburn, from wiki:

Claud Cockburn (1904-1981) was a radical English journalist controversial for communist sympathies. Under the name Frank Pitcairn, Cockburn contributed to the British Communist newspaper, the Daily Worker.... Cockburn was attacked by George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia (1938). Orwell accused Cockburn of being under the control of the Communist Party and was critical of the way Cockburn reported the Barcelona May Days.

Well, the ol' man was a full blown commie agitator.What else does the Nation say?

He graduated from Oxford in 1963 with a degree in English literature and language.

I knew it, an intellectual left wing commie radical.Wait Northern California? This intellectual left wing commie agitator is now a voting citizen in my Congressional district? He is going to cancel out my vote?

Note: Thanks to California's legendary gerrymandering of Congressional districts, even though I live 6 hours and 300 miles from this pinko, our Congressional district looks like a chicken that has had its neck wrung about 5 times, with one wing sticking out with three dog legs when viewed on a map...

Who let this guy into the country anyway? The Nation:

A permanent resident of the United States since 1973, Cockburn wrote for many years...

Wait, Nixon let this guy in? Law and Order, the silent majority, Nixon?

A permanent resident of the United States since 1973, Cockburn wrote for many years for The Village Voice about the press and politics. Since then he has contributed to many publications including The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and the Wall Street Journal (where he had a regular column from 1980 to 1990)...

The Wall Street Journal hired commies and radicals during the Reagan years? Wouldn't Wall Street worm and CIA henchman William Casey have this guy removed? Let's read this thing from the Nation again:

Alexander Cockburn, The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist and one of America's best-known radical journalists, was born in Scotland and grew up in Ireland. He has written "Beat the Devil" since 1984.

Wait, I read Beat the Devil all the time... this guy does not seem radical. He seems pretty normal to me.

...with Jeffrey St. Clair he has written or coedited several books including: Whiteout, The CIA, Drugs and the Press; The Politics of Anti-Semitism; Imperial Crusades; Al Gore, A User's Manual; Five Days That Shook the World; and A Dime's Worth of Difference, about the two-party system in America.

Wait, I have read Whiteout, The CIA, Drugs and the Press. It is quite well written and documented.

He is co-editor, with Jeffrey St Clair, of the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch (http://www.counterpunch.org) which have a substantial world audience. In 1987 he published a best-selling collection of essays, Corruptions of Empire...

Oh, that is where I heard the name... I read CounterPunch all the time. This guy is not radical or a commie. He edits one of the best political and economic websites I have read. He has some of the best contributors on a variety of important topics on a daily basis. How do you pull that one off from the lost coast?

Okay Cockburn, you are in for now. But keep that little flag handy at all times and watch your step.

The well written recent essays of Mr. Alexander Cockburn:

I Become an American

Though the U.S. Constitution seemingly blocks my path at this time, I have taken the first necessary step in my own quest for the White House by becoming a citizen of the United States at approximately 10 am, Pacific time, last Wednesday, June 17, in the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California.

To my immediate left in the vast and splendid deco theater was a Moroccan, to my right a Salvadoran and around us 956 other candidates for citizenship from 98 countries, each holding a small specimen of the flag that was about to become our standard. All of us had sworn early that day that since our final, successful interview with immigration officials we had not become prostitutes or members of the Communist Party.

Well, Mr. Cockburn, you are a member of the press and have been associated with individuals at the Washington Post. Seeing the latest Post scandal of fees for service in arranging lobbyists meeting politicians, pure prostitution, I would worry about that one. And the communist thing, dad and all. Better bring your lawyer to the swearing in.

Inductees to U.S. nation-hood were downstairs; relatives and friends were up in the balcony, including CounterPuncher and friend Scott Handleman, attorney at law. I was determined to start out on the right path. What is more American than to have a lawyer nearby?

My own path to citizenship began with a green card in 1973, allowing me to work for the Village Voice in New York and to be a legal resident...

How do guys like this get here in the first place?

The man who helped me get that card was Ed Koch, at that time a supposedly liberal US congressman living, then as now, in Greenwich Village. A few years later, in 1977, he ran for mayor of New York City and I wrote about him harshly. Koch was heavily backed by Rupert Murdoch and the New York Post, running on a law and order platform.

Murdoch's pal Ed Koch got him in? You want to talk about some one who should be deported as an undesirable alien... Murdoch.

Ed was always a petty man, and this trait was well displayed the night he won. A PBS interviewer asked him what his "worst moment" on the race had been and he promptly said in his trade-mark squeaky whine, "the attack by Alexander Cockburn in the Voice... To think I got him his green card!" In that race there had been slurs a lot nastier than any I made. If you walked around Queens in that campaign you'd see "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo", scrawled on plenty of walls.

The INS never checked on this guy??

In my Voice column I made fun of a New Yorker writer, a woman dispensing lethal does of tedium on an almost weekly basis. I didn't know that her lover was a New Jersey congressman powerful on the Immigration and Naturalization subcommittee. Within days I was the object of a probe by the INS. A resident alien perches on a frail branch. That New Jersey congressman could have pressured the INS to put me on the watch list, meaning the next time I returned to the US I could have found the door slammed in my face.

In the mid 1980s a nutball colonel called Oliver North, working in the White House for Ronald Reagan, began to re-activate a national system of prison camps for lefties from a blueprint that had sat in government filing cabinets ever since the Palmer raids in the Red Scare following World War One. Dick Cheney most certainly dusted it off after 2001. On North's plan it was safe to assume, as with Cheney's, that potentially troublesome legal residents would have been locked up, then kicked out...

How Long Does It Take?

How long does it take a mild-mannered, antiwar, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, "decapitation" strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses the far end of the globe?

There's nothing surprising here. As far back as President Woodrow Wilson in the early twentieth century, American liberalism has been swift to flex imperial muscle, to whistle up the Marines. High explosive has always been in the hormone shot...

Woodrow Wilson, Virginian, lover of the DW Griffith film "The Clansman," documented racist (his own writings), US Corporate stooge and banking shill... banking shill is back in vogue these days. Read Wilson's 14 point speech for a lesson on US Rockefeller corporate agenda disguised as high ideals... a hallmark of Wilson speeches.

Thin Ice From Here to the Horizon

On any rational assessment the popular new president is skating on thin ice. Pollyanna bulletins about the economy puff up from the White House and Federal Reserve, like auguries of a new Pope through the Vatican chimney. "Habemus spem." We have hope.

We've just heard it from President Obama: "We are starting to see glimmers of hope across the economy." From Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who's so far unleashed $12 trillion in booster money, we get the always sinister reassurance, like Death giving the Appointee in Samarra a friendly tap on the shoulder, "the foundations of our economy are strong".

Ouch.
Harlots High and Low: a Foul Saga in the History of Network TV

And then... a miracle! A very American kind of miracle to be sure, being the sort of miracle achieved by the usual megatonnage of campaign contributions from the drug industry dropped into the pockets of the relevant FDA overseers in Congress in Clinton's slush-sodden second term, plus direct lobbying of the FDA by media companies such as Time-Warner. The miracle went by the name of DTC: Direct to the Consumer Advertising.

Broadcast advertising of prescription drugs in the U.S. had actually been legal for years, but in 1997 the FDA "clarified" the rules about alerting consumers to any risks in a number of deft ways that suddenly made the game a whole lot easier for the drug companies. Thirty-five years after Congress moved to curb pharmaceutical company advertising of amphetamine antidepressants and barbiturates, the floodgates were opened once again. Through them poured the drug companies and their advertising dollars...

Back at the start of the 1990s the drug companies were spending $55 million on DTC ads. By 2003 the outlay had soared to $3 billion, and by 2005 to $7.5 billion. DTC sales-pitching of prescription drugs has been a huge boon to the networks, whose revenues from this source have surged since 1997. 2005 saw NBC, ABC and CBS pull in $1.4 billion in prescription drug advertising...

For the drug lords in the big pharmaceutical companies - America's most profitable industry - the FDA's 1997 decision has indeed been a license to print money, bales of it.

Back to our "Media as Whores" theme.

On any given day, CounterPunch can have a dozen or more articles and essays from gifted writers in many fields. Mr. Cockburn leads the Friday edition with one of his pieces. You will find some extremely interesting and thought provoking analysis.

This is why we like Mr. Cockburn. I guess Nixon was just too busy with other problems in 1973 to keep this subversive radical out of the country.