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The SEC is destroying documents, Bank of America is apparently walking up to presidential candidates out of nowhere and pledging to help them, Goldman Sachs VPs are changing their names to work for the government and help GS, Moodys is corrupt (but we're going to investigate S&P because they're the corrupt one that was the big meanie to the US.) Government investigators don't investigate, then turn up in cushy gigs working for banks. Oh yeah, this is a real utopia, this environment of moral hazard on a massive scale we've created.
Not like I haven't been saying that nothing has changed since 2008 or anything (if anything, the level of corruption is worse.)
geez, guys, Wall Street being corrupt should be a given if one has ever read any history. What is so sad today is how utterly corrupted is Washington BY Wall Street.
But then, we went to war in WWI because the Allies were losing and they owed JPM too much money that he did not wish to lose.
Alas and alack, so often we americans must have our cranks run over to get us to take action, I fear for the event this time. The blithering idiots - super rich, multinational corporations, wall street banks - are so hell bent of the fleecing of america, we're probably facing civil unrest if not outright revolution. And they own congress.
Oh, and there's an election coming soon and does anyone in the room see any sort of decent candidate anywhere? Obama's less effective than Carter and the 3 being put forth by the republicans are pathetic.
Reply to @scott: Right on, Scott. There was a great segment on Jon Stewart about investigation of S&P - well worth watching (but can't find link to include here).
Reply to @rono and Scott: I got so distressed I emailed Bernie Sanders (copied below - hope it's ok to include it).
"THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your tireless efforts in fighting for the poor and middle class - and trying to bring reason to BOTH Republicans and Democrats. I don't know how you can get up each morning and try again when it must feel like hitting your head against a wall.
The budget and tax system does need complete overhauling. One major problem that is not addressed as part of the budget "fix" is all the money politicians and city, county, etc. officials have scammed off their offices. We read about this ALMOST EVERY DAY. But, like many in the previous administration who should be in jail, very few politicians are actually held accountable. The financial institutions were bailed out without even restricting bonuses paid to the financial executives whose illegal and immoral actions caused the crash. They all should be in jail with their assets given back to the government.
We are so ashamed of the appalling ineptitude and buyout of the majority of our top government officials. The Republicans know how to manipulate the people with their consistent talking points, most of them either lies or stretching the truth. But most of the Democrats (including Obama) seem helpless and incapable of dealing with this, so have become completely ineffective in protecting the people.
We had such high hopes for Obama when we voted for him. But I can never vote for him again. So PLEASE could we get someone like you, Dennis Kucinich or Elizabeth Warren to run for President - then get Elliott Spitzer to be Attorney General so the American People can finally start to be proud of our Country again?"
Reply to @CathyG: My whole thing has been since the days of fundalarm that QE1, QE2, etc would not work because nothing was being done to provide sustainable benefits to the country at large - and we're at that point, where people are looking for QE3 because the effects of QE2 have worn off and we're left - in terms of the bigger picture/rest of the economy - in a very similar (and not particularly good) place.
My concern at this point is this: 1. We get QE3 or some form of it, such as "Operation Twist" (which won't do anything either besides buying time - additionally, QE1 and QE2 didn't work, so third time's the charm, right?), which has been discussed. Groundhog day - stocks stabilize or go up, the currency becomes weaker, we're back at this point next year looking for QE4. Meanwhile, ZIRP as far as the eye can see, which I think will continue to result in flight of capital out of the country, or to specific real assets - like the smart move hawkmountain discussed in another thread. You don't want to be in cash. I do believe that this is the likely route, and we may find out as soon as Bernanke's Jackson Hole speech next week.
2. The cards fall as they may (no QE3, no "Operation Twist", no nothing) - I think my worst case scenario in this case would be that all those people who said that things would be worse if there was no QE1 or QE2 will find out what worse will be like without any ability to do anything because we've spent the money, are now much further in debt and we have a government that probably couldn't agree on naming a street. People talk about infrastructure banks and all that - anyone believe that anyone in this government could come together to agree on the details of that, or if some agreement is made that much of the money won't be funneled to cronies and special interests? Our infrastructure is in lousy shape - it should have been a priority three years ago, but we don't get a "re-do" on the money spent, do we?
Neither route is good and either route has the potential to get disorderly very quickly (and not on a positive manner, although I'm guessing that was apparent.) Beyond that, there have been an awful lot of depressing stories over the last week about various corruption in government and the financial industry, which will do nothing for investor confidence or generally confidence in government - to have a Goldman Sachs VP change his last name in order to work for a government official to help Goldman Sachs... I mean, that's really a point where one would be justified - I think - in thinking that the number of elected officials who actually kind of care about the public has gotten down to a number that's ineffective against those who are now bought and paid for by any number of special interests or corporations. The system is broken.
None of this is sunshine and rainbows, but it's just what I see as the math of the situation.
Reply to @scott: I completely agree. I tried to explain to my Mom what was going on in the world - and our government. But it sounded so appallingly implausable that she couldn't believe it. I wouldn't either if I hadn't been reading and hearing about all the corruption, lying and dysfunction for so long now. What is most infuriating and depressing is there aren't enough intelligent people who have a genuine concern about the downhill spiral this Country is forcing on its people who are also active enough, or in a position to make any difference.
Reply to @CathyG: Back in the days of fundalarm, I kept yelling that what was going on wouldn't end well. Watching the debates over the debt ceiling though, was when I thought, "This is even worse than I thought it could get." I've never been so embarrassed by the government - I've never seen anything like it, adults playing politics on the level of high schoolers; just entirely focused on low-level political bickering above everything else. No one coming up with any ideas, just every sentence starting with "YOUR party did/didn't....!" The end result was a last minute agreement the details of which no one appeared to like, and one element of which ('the Supercongress") many believe is not constitutional.
One economist who I listen to a lot is Jim Rickards, because what he offers is a mixture of economics and geopolitics (as well as the importance of the latter and its effects on the world of finance), and I can't imagine what the debt ceiling debates on tv looked like to the rest of the world.
The other thing that bothered me for the last few years and still bothers me is that there didn't seem to be a focus or overall plan for the nation. If the US is a company, what are our goals, focuses, etc? Where do we want to head? We still don't have a real agreement on any of those things or how we reach our goals, or at least I don't get a sense that we do. And people can go "Oh, it's those evil republicans" or those "evil democrats", but that really serves no purpose aside from dividing the country. If people could realize that everyone's just trying to get through the day, liberals and conservatives - maybe people could put politics aside for a minute to actually listen to the other side and maybe come up with something for the good of the country. I have zero confidence of this happening, however. You're at a point though in this country where people had better start putting their differences aside and get it together, because the consequences of not are starting to become real apparent.
The whole political thing of my side is right, the other side is evil (that statement, to some degree - ranging from "the other side is wrong" to "the other side are hellish beasts bent on world destruction") is just so deeply rooted at this point - I mean, I see it everywhere, and it's unfortunate and it helps nothing and is really unproductive.
People talk about an infrastructure bank, I would love for this country to have focused on infrastructure three years ago, but at this point I have doubts that an agreement can be reached on anything and that any agreement can be effective. As for the latter part of what I said in terms of any agreement being effective, I just don't believe that the government (at least over the last 5-10 years) has shown itself to be particularly intelligent at allocating capital. People say the country needs to spend more money - who's spending the money, and how many cronies and special interests are just funneling money from whatever is agreed upon. So, not much confidence in the whole infrastructure thing going over well, either.
Reply to @scott: I just wish we knew how much further downhill we will go before somebody in power wakes up and actually sets plans to fix this mess.
P.S. I didn't think anyone else was up except me during these very early hours - can't remember what zone you live in if you mentioned it, but nice to hear another voice (especially yours) so early.
The above two statements should probably be terminated by a period.
There is an article today detailing how companies that donated to Rick Perry's campaign got rewarded by funds from Texas Enterprise Fund that Perry controls. If you are interested, do a google search for texas enterprise fund rick perry.
The savings and loan scandal was not widely seen as a warning signal, and the gambling and insane risk-taking became increasingly dangerous until that point in 2008 when Lehman Brothers bank and the world's largest insurance company, AIG, collapsed almost simultaneously.
Ferguson argues that all this was foreseeable and produces a number of people who predicted that the lack of regulation and the dealing in worthless but highly profitable securities such as CDOs (collateralised debt obligations) would lead to a disaster with a worldwide knock-on effect. Among these people are George Soros; Gillian Tett of the Financial Times; Charles Morris, author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown; Raghuram Rajan of the IMF, whose paper called "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?" was sneered at by former treasury secretary and president of Harvard Larry Summers; and the man who to me is the hero of the movie, lawyer Robert Gnaizda, former president of the public-interest Greenlining Institute. The outspoken Gnaizda is the only person to say there should have been major prosecutions. He adds that there won't be because too many people with top positions in government, the academic world and Wall Street are involved.
Inside Job invites us to scrutinise some glib, evasive and dubious people, all but two of them in the financial business. One of those is Kristin Davis, Wall Street's favourite madam, the other Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist specialising in the greed and sexual disorders of bankers and hedge fund operators and the only man on view not wearing a tie and suit.
The worst types, however, are academic economists who see no problem in having one foot in Washington, one foot on campus, and their mouths in the corporate trough as highly paid advisers and apologists for Wall Street firms. One of them explains his sudden decision to leave government service when things hotted up by saying he had to revise a textbook. They represent a clear example of that betrayal of intellectual responsibility and disinterestedness that 80 years ago the French thinker Julien Benda famously called "la trahison des clercs".
I've only scratched the surface of this intelligent, riveting and informative film, which I cannot commend too highly. My jaw-dropping reaction to much that I heard was rather like that of Christine Lagarde, the French minister of finance, when her American opposite number got round to telling her about the collapse of Lehman Brothers: "Holy cow!"
>Julien Benda is now mostly remembered for his short 1927 book
La Trahison des Clercs,
a work of some notoriety in its day. The title of the English translation was The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, although "The Treason of the Learned" would have been more accurate.<
Comments
Not like I haven't been saying that nothing has changed since 2008 or anything (if anything, the level of corruption is worse.)
But then, we went to war in WWI because the Allies were losing and they owed JPM too much money that he did not wish to lose.
Alas and alack, so often we americans must have our cranks run over to get us to take action, I fear for the event this time. The blithering idiots - super rich, multinational corporations, wall street banks - are so hell bent of the fleecing of america, we're probably facing civil unrest if not outright revolution. And they own congress.
Oh, and there's an election coming soon and does anyone in the room see any sort of decent candidate anywhere? Obama's less effective than Carter and the 3 being put forth by the republicans are pathetic.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono
Have a good weekend, all!
"THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your tireless efforts in fighting for the poor and middle class - and trying to bring reason to BOTH Republicans and Democrats. I don't know how you can get up each morning and try again when it must feel like hitting your head against a wall.
The budget and tax system does need complete overhauling. One major problem that is not addressed as part of the budget "fix" is all the money politicians and city, county, etc. officials have scammed off their offices. We read about this ALMOST EVERY DAY. But, like many in the previous administration who should be in jail, very few politicians are actually held accountable. The financial institutions were bailed out without even restricting bonuses paid to the financial executives whose illegal and immoral actions caused the crash. They all should be in jail with their assets given back to the government.
We are so ashamed of the appalling ineptitude and buyout of the majority of our top government officials. The Republicans know how to manipulate the people with their consistent talking points, most of them either lies or stretching the truth. But most of the Democrats (including Obama) seem helpless and incapable of dealing with this, so have become completely ineffective in protecting the people.
We had such high hopes for Obama when we voted for him. But I can never vote for him again. So PLEASE could we get someone like you, Dennis Kucinich or Elizabeth Warren to run for President - then get Elliott Spitzer to be Attorney General so the American People can finally start to be proud of our Country again?"
My concern at this point is this:
1. We get QE3 or some form of it, such as "Operation Twist" (which won't do anything either besides buying time - additionally, QE1 and QE2 didn't work, so third time's the charm, right?), which has been discussed. Groundhog day - stocks stabilize or go up, the currency becomes weaker, we're back at this point next year looking for QE4. Meanwhile, ZIRP as far as the eye can see, which I think will continue to result in flight of capital out of the country, or to specific real assets - like the smart move hawkmountain discussed in another thread. You don't want to be in cash. I do believe that this is the likely route, and we may find out as soon as Bernanke's Jackson Hole speech next week.
2. The cards fall as they may (no QE3, no "Operation Twist", no nothing) - I think my worst case scenario in this case would be that all those people who said that things would be worse if there was no QE1 or QE2 will find out what worse will be like without any ability to do anything because we've spent the money, are now much further in debt and we have a government that probably couldn't agree on naming a street. People talk about infrastructure banks and all that - anyone believe that anyone in this government could come together to agree on the details of that, or if some agreement is made that much of the money won't be funneled to cronies and special interests? Our infrastructure is in lousy shape - it should have been a priority three years ago, but we don't get a "re-do" on the money spent, do we?
Neither route is good and either route has the potential to get disorderly very quickly (and not on a positive manner, although I'm guessing that was apparent.) Beyond that, there have been an awful lot of depressing stories over the last week about various corruption in government and the financial industry, which will do nothing for investor confidence or generally confidence in government - to have a Goldman Sachs VP change his last name in order to work for a government official to help Goldman Sachs... I mean, that's really a point where one would be justified - I think - in thinking that the number of elected officials who actually kind of care about the public has gotten down to a number that's ineffective against those who are now bought and paid for by any number of special interests or corporations. The system is broken.
None of this is sunshine and rainbows, but it's just what I see as the math of the situation.
One economist who I listen to a lot is Jim Rickards, because what he offers is a mixture of economics and geopolitics (as well as the importance of the latter and its effects on the world of finance), and I can't imagine what the debt ceiling debates on tv looked like to the rest of the world.
The other thing that bothered me for the last few years and still bothers me is that there didn't seem to be a focus or overall plan for the nation. If the US is a company, what are our goals, focuses, etc? Where do we want to head? We still don't have a real agreement on any of those things or how we reach our goals, or at least I don't get a sense that we do. And people can go "Oh, it's those evil republicans" or those "evil democrats", but that really serves no purpose aside from dividing the country. If people could realize that everyone's just trying to get through the day, liberals and conservatives - maybe people could put politics aside for a minute to actually listen to the other side and maybe come up with something for the good of the country. I have zero confidence of this happening, however. You're at a point though in this country where people had better start putting their differences aside and get it together, because the consequences of not are starting to become real apparent.
The whole political thing of my side is right, the other side is evil (that statement, to some degree - ranging from "the other side is wrong" to "the other side are hellish beasts bent on world destruction") is just so deeply rooted at this point - I mean, I see it everywhere, and it's unfortunate and it helps nothing and is really unproductive.
People talk about an infrastructure bank, I would love for this country to have focused on infrastructure three years ago, but at this point I have doubts that an agreement can be reached on anything and that any agreement can be effective. As for the latter part of what I said in terms of any agreement being effective, I just don't believe that the government (at least over the last 5-10 years) has shown itself to be particularly intelligent at allocating capital. People say the country needs to spend more money - who's spending the money, and how many cronies and special interests are just funneling money from whatever is agreed upon. So, not much confidence in the whole infrastructure thing going over well, either.
P.S. I didn't think anyone else was up except me during these very early hours - can't remember what zone you live in if you mentioned it, but nice to hear another voice (especially yours) so early.
Politicians corrupt?
The above two statements should probably be terminated by a period.
There is an article today detailing how companies that donated to Rick Perry's campaign got rewarded by funds from Texas Enterprise Fund that Perry controls. If you are interested, do a google search for texas enterprise fund rick perry.
Reviews:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/movies/08inside.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/feb/20/inside-job-charles-ferguson-review
Excerpt ---
The savings and loan scandal was not widely seen as a warning signal, and the gambling and insane risk-taking became increasingly dangerous until that point in 2008 when Lehman Brothers bank and the world's largest insurance company, AIG, collapsed almost simultaneously.
Ferguson argues that all this was foreseeable and produces a number of people who predicted that the lack of regulation and the dealing in worthless but highly profitable securities such as CDOs (collateralised debt obligations) would lead to a disaster with a worldwide knock-on effect. Among these people are George Soros; Gillian Tett of the Financial Times; Charles Morris, author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown; Raghuram Rajan of the IMF, whose paper called "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?" was sneered at by former treasury secretary and president of Harvard Larry Summers; and the man who to me is the hero of the movie, lawyer Robert Gnaizda, former president of the public-interest Greenlining Institute. The outspoken Gnaizda is the only person to say there should have been major prosecutions. He adds that there won't be because too many people with top positions in government, the academic world and Wall Street are involved.
Inside Job invites us to scrutinise some glib, evasive and dubious people, all but two of them in the financial business. One of those is Kristin Davis, Wall Street's favourite madam, the other Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist specialising in the greed and sexual disorders of bankers and hedge fund operators and the only man on view not wearing a tie and suit.
The worst types, however, are academic economists who see no problem in having one foot in Washington, one foot on campus, and their mouths in the corporate trough as highly paid advisers and apologists for Wall Street firms. One of them explains his sudden decision to leave government service when things hotted up by saying he had to revise a textbook. They represent a clear example of that betrayal of intellectual responsibility and disinterestedness that 80 years ago the French thinker Julien Benda famously called "la trahison des clercs".
I've only scratched the surface of this intelligent, riveting and informative film, which I cannot commend too highly. My jaw-dropping reaction to much that I heard was rather like that of Christine Lagarde, the French minister of finance, when her American opposite number got round to telling her about the collapse of Lehman Brothers: "Holy cow!"
La Trahison des Clercs,
a work of some notoriety in its day. The title of the English translation was The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, although "The Treason of the Learned" would have been more accurate.<
Wikipedia