Month: April 2009

Whatever Joe the Plumber makes in income this year, I think every single other American should make at least a dollar more than that. Dude’s a moran.

Two stories today highlight the fact that while Obama is doing a pretty good job as President in most respects, he’s still letting the banksters run the damn country and will continue to do so.  First, we see the reason the Dow was up 150+ points today:  anticipation of tomorrow’s announced rules changes in mark-to-market accounting.

It’s unclear exactly what changes the FASB plans to make on Thursday, but none is expected to be radical enough to have an immediate impact on stocks. Still, most investment experts say bank stocks should be avoided until the full impact can be weighed.  

Advocates of mark-to-market rules say they provide a clearer picture of troubled assets’ value because they are priced according to their present worth in the marketplace. The alternative, known as mark-to-model, allows banks to price the assets at a model determined by the institution and at times not easily in view of the investing public.

That’s fancy MBA talk for “We’re lying and we made this too complex for you peons to figure out on purpose, so take our word for it.”

With the rise of derivatives used to package now-distressed mortgages, mark-to-market opponents say the rules need to be changed because there is no fair market value for the bad assets. The current bid offer in the marketplace is at a level that would wipe out some banks if they had to sell at those prices, some analysts say.

So, the banksters want a mulligan.  They want their assets to be what their models predict, and not what they are actually selling for right now in the marketplace.  If they have to sell at these near worthless prices (and they have to sell at these worthless prices because the toxic assets really are nearly worthless) they they go under.

This is what I mean by America’s major banks are insolvent.  They are holding pieces of paper that are worth 20 cents on the dollar when the banksters say they are worth 100.  But we can’t call the banks out on them because they will collapse the entire global financial system if they are forced to go under.

Which means Obama’s boys are letting the banksters lie about what these assets are worth.  And how are these banks Too Big To Fail?  Why, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which allowed these huge megabanks to form into ravenous cancers on our economy.  So what’s Obama’s response to this regulatory nightmare?

Why, hiring the guys who created it in the first place!  Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Tim Geithner, and now we learn the nominee for Geithner’s second-in-command is the guy who did the legwork on the GLB Act:

Tim Geithner‘s new nominee for number two at the Treasury Department, Neal Wolin, played a key role in drafting legislation in the late 1990s deregulating the banking system, a former Treasury Department official confirms to us.

The law that Wolin helped draft has been blamed by some critics, many of them Democrats, for easing up regulatory pressure on huge financial institutions, tangentially helping create today’s mess — and his role drafting it could come under questioning at his upcoming confirmation hearings.

Our reporter, Ryan Derousseau, came across Wolin’s role in researching our big profile of Wolin at WhoRunsGov.com. Stuart Eizenstat, a deputy Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, confirmed that as Treasury’s general counsel at the time, Wolin “provided the technical and legal drafting” for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

As Ryan writes, the Act hasn’t been directly blamed for today’s meltdown. But it did pave the way for the birth of huge financial companies like Citigroup that were deemed “too big to fail” when their mortgage bets went belly-up and the credit market evaporated. The government, of course, had to bail out these institutions with billions in taxpayer dollars.

Wolin — who was picked after several other candidates passed on the slot — did the legal work under then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who is now Obama’s head of the National Economic Council. The difference here is that Summers’ post, unlike Wolin’s, is a non-confirmable one, so he hasn’t been pressed publicly on Gramm-Leach-Bliley. The question now is whether Wolin will come under sharp questioning over his role in creating it.

Failing upwards is apparently not just a prerequisite to be in the Bush administration, but one for the Obama administration too.  We’re already seeing the influence of the deregulators on the banksters and in a major way:  virtually no accountability and despite all of Obama’s tough talk, the reality is the banksters will continue to get free trillions until we inflate our way into a banana republic.  These are the same guys that pitched the notions that the Depression-era protections on Too Big To Fail were antiquated nonsense, and that housing values would go up forever.  Now they’re calling the shots on Obama’s economic policy.  Why should we expect anything different?

At least the Republicans are somewhat more honest about their plan to eradicate the American middle class.  Obama either doesn’t realize what’s going on, or has been talked into it by the same guys that sold it to Clinton on the way out the door.

Either way, it rewards failure with trillions…our trillions.

The foxes aren’t in charge of just the henhouse.  The foxes own chicken and egg distribution, production, sales, marketing, and logistics, every step of the way.  That money they’re giving away to themselves isn’t backed up by gold, it’s backed up by Helicopter Ben’s printing press.

We’re in for a hell of a ride down the tracks.  One way.  Your standard of living will go with it.

Be prepared.

It’s true, they walk amongst us.

Appointments that make Republican heads explode make me happy. What makes you happy?

In his latest article, Biberman & Co, Uri Avnery, the sagacious Israeli peace activist and founder of Gush Shalom, gives his prediction about the next stage of Israeli peace avoidance, which applies to dealing with Obama. How Netanyahu will handle Obama is apparently an old formula used before in keeping the United States in line. Although I will only quote the relevant section from Biberman & Co (meaning Bibi plus Lieberman with Ehud Barak thrown in, as in Bibarak), the entire article can be read HERE.

According to Avnery, a clash with Obama is inevitable. Obama wants to create a new world order in the Middle East and he knows that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict poisons the atmosphere against America in the Arab and the entire Muslim world. Obama wants to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is exactly what Netanyahu and his partners want to prevent.

How will Netayahu do this?

The solution is written in the Bible (Proverbs 24:6): “For by ruses thou shalt make thy war.”

(In the King James version, the Hebrew word Takhbulot is translated as “wise counsel”. In Modern Hebrew it means ruses, tricks, ploys – and that is the way it is understood by all Hebrew-speakers today.)

FROM THE beginnings of Zionism, its leaders have known that their vision necessitates a large measure of make-belief. It is impossible to take over a country inhabited by another people without disguising the aim, diverting attention, hiding the acts on the ground behind a screen of flowery words.

All states lie, of course. 400 years ago, a British diplomat, Sir Henry Wotton, observed: “An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” Because of the special circumstances of their enterprise, the Zionists have had to use deceit perhaps a bit more than usual.

Now the task is to present to the world, and especially the US and Europe, a false picture, pretending that our new government is yearning for peace, acting for peace, indeed turning every stone in search of peace – while doing the exact opposite. The world will be submerged by a deluge of declarations and promises, accompanied by lots of meaningless gestures, conferences and meetings.

People with good ears are already hearing Netanyahu, Liberman and Barak starting to play around with the “Arab Peace Initiative”. They will talk about it, interpret it, accept it ostensibly while attaching conditions that empty it of all content.

The great advantage of this initiative is that it does not come from the Palestinians, and therefore does not require negotiations with the Palestinians. Like the deceased “Jordanian Option” and others of its kind, it serves as a substitute for a dialogue with the Palestinians. The Arab League includes 22 governments, some of which cooperate on the sly with the Israeli leadership. They can be relied on not to agree among themselves on anything practical.

BUT DECEIVING, like dancing the tango, takes two: one who deceives and one who wants to be deceived.

Netanyahu believes that Obama will want to be deceived. Why would he want to quarrel with Israel, confront the mighty pro-Israel lobby and the US Congress, when he can settle for soothing words from Netanyahu? Not to mention Europe, divided and ridden by Holocaust guilt, and the pathetic Tony Blair moving around like a restless ghost.

Is Obama ready to play, like most of his predecessors, the role of the deceived lover?

The Biberman/Bibarak/Bibiyahu government believes that the answer is a resounding yes. I hope that it will be a resounding No.

(with permission)

So there we have it: the next four, maybe eight years of Middle East politics. Although things change, they may remain the same.

A little understood parliamentary trick called ‘budget reconciliation’ allows the majority party in the Senate to pass legislation with a mere 50 votes (plus the tie-breaking vote of the vice-president). Basically, there is a rule limiting debate on the budget which means that the budget cannot be filibustered. Bill Clinton used budget reconciliation to pass his tax hikes in 1993 and George W. Bush used the process to pass his tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

Technically, you are not supposed to use the procedure to piggy-back controversial legislation onto the budget in order to get around the filibuster. There’s even a thing called the Byrd Rule which is supposed to prevent this from happening.

If the Democrats include a health care bill as part of the budget reconciliation process then the bill will be subject to a point of order that it is in violation of the Byrd Rule. Then it will be up to the parliamentarian to decide whether the Byrd Rule has been violated. If the answer is ‘yes’, then it takes 60 votes to waive the rule.

The trick, then, is to craft the health care portion of the bill in such a way that it does not violate the Byrd Rule, and part of accomplishing that appears to involve making the bill budget-neutral. I’d defer to David Waldman or others on the specifics, but that’s my non-parliamentarian take on it.

Without going into too much detail, Congress is passing its budget right now. The budget isn’t binding, but any changes between the proposed budget and the actual budget that emerges in the fall must be ‘reconciled’. There is currently a House version of the budget and a Senate version of the budget that are under consideration, and those, too, must be reconciled (like any other piece of bicameral congressional legislation). The House version includes a provision that would allow health care or cap and trade to be included later on when the budget reconciliation process takes place. The Senate does not include the provision, but it doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that one of the two versions included this provision. When the House and Senate get done passing their respective budgets, there will be a Conference between the House and Senate where a few select members of each body iron out one version of the bill. It is in that Conference where the provision for including health care and/or cap and trade must survive. If it does, then the Republican filibuster will be defeated and the Democrats will need only fifty of their fifty-eight (or fifty-nine) members to vote for Obama’s top priorities.

The biggest resistance to doing this end-around has been coming from conservative Democrats including the powerful chairman of the Budget Committee Kent Conrad and the even more powerful chairman of the Finance Committee Max Baucus. But they are now wavering. While they don’t like it…

Key Senate Democrats such as Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.), however, say they do not want to poison the atmosphere in the upper chamber while there is still an opportunity to assemble a bipartisan coalition for a health reform bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he is open to using reconciliation.

The House version of the budget resolution includes reconciliation, while the Senate’s does not. Both of those are expected to pass this week. When the two chambers combine their resolutions in the coming weeks, Democrats will have an ace in the hole because of the House’s actions.

…they are coming around.

The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said Monday that if Republicans attempt this week to block a $3.55 trillion budget resolution that contains funding for the president’s health care overhaul, Democrats would likely submit a second resolution.

And, said Sen. Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who chairs the budget panel, the new proposal would contain a “reconciliation” provision, which would strip the minority party of its ability to filibuster the measure.

The maneuver would allow majority Senate Democrats to pass a budget with a simple majority vote — and without any Republican support.

Conrad had resisted including the reconciliation measure in the resolution his committee passed last week and sent to the Senate floor for debate this week.

“I don’t think reconciliation is the right way to write fundamental reform legislation,” he said Monday during a morning conference call with reporters before the Senate began debate on the measure…

…But Conrad warned that if there’s no Republican cooperation this week — “if it’s proved absolutely essential” — a second budget resolution that includes the controversial but common reconciliation provision would likely be sent to the floor.

“I would strongly prefer not to do it that way,” said Conrad, who predicted that Democrats would get some Republican cooperation this week.

“I believe there are a group of Republicans who fully intend to help write major health care reform legislation,” he said, “and I think we ought to engage them.”

In other words, Obama is going to get an up or down vote on his health care plan.

One thing you can add to the list of why you hated the Bush administration? They engaged in prosecutorial misconduct during Sen. Ted Stevens trial by failing to turn over exculpatory material to the defense. Because of this, Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to drop all charges and let the corrupt master of the intertubes go scot-free. Holder also considered Stevens’ age and the fact that he no longer serves in the Senate. A conspiracy theorist might guess that the Republicans sabotaged their own prosecution in order to let Stevens get off, but this is a huge scarlet letter on the resumes of the prosecutors. They actually did this because they were either stupid or they just wanted to win too badly.

The end result, however, is one more example of a powerful white guy committing a crime and not having to serve jail time.

Coleman lost another court battle? Damn activist judges. Supreme Court here we come! In a few years, that is . . .

Isn’t it funny how the courts are really, really important to Republicans whenever they might lose an election, but not when some poor slob might lose his or her right to sue a multinational corporation for harm done?*<p

* That’s a rhetorical question, except for how you decide to interpret my use of the word “funny” as in either “hilarious in a black humor sort of way” or “fricking hypocritical.”

I’m kind of amazed that there are seventeen Republicans in the House willing to vote against the Vision Care for Kids Act of 2009. Maybe that’s why they’re struggling to win a seat from New York tonight despite a 70,000 voter registration advantage. In fact, they’re 65 votes behind after all today’s votes were counted. There are approximately 6,000 absentees and military votes to count, so the race is too close to call. Yet, in a way, they’ve already lost since it’s clear that Obama was a huge strength to the Democratic challenger.
In any case, we’re headed for recount territory and the Republicans will try to steal it. I didn’t really care who won this race but I really don’t like it when Republicans don’t respect the will of the voters.

A principle that is used extensively in engineering systems,redundancy,in effect,says don’t put all your eggs in one basket.Nature itself uses this to create diversity in all plant and animal life.

Given this universal principle, it is amazing that the fever for globalization has been recklessly adopted by many richer countries.Their use of GMO foods is a good example which destroys the diversity of plant life leading to many suicides among farmers in India.

I think globalization to ensure profits for big corporations is a great danger and could lead to a catastrophe that Rumsfeld called “unknown unknowns”.

In effect,we must create a firewall so that local economies can thrive without exposure to the vagaries of the global markets.That will be our protection.