Weekend Economists' Big Fat GREEK Wedding, or My Life in Ruins: November 4-6, 2011

[Demeter]

Here it is: our everything coming up Greek Weekend. In today's headline, i mention two very funny romantic comedies starring Nia Vardalos:

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

A 2002 Canadian and American romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. The film is centered on Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" Ian Miller (John Corbett). At the 75th Academy Awards, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. A sleeper hit, the film grossed $241.4 million in North America, despite never reaching number one at the box office during its release (the highest-grossing film to accomplish this feat).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Big_Fat_Greek_Wedding

and:

"My Life in Ruins"

(UK title: Driving Aphrodite) is a 2009 romantic comedy film set amongst the ruins of ancient Greece, starring Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, Alexis Georgoulis, Rachel Dratch, Harland Williams and British comedy actor and impressionist Alistair McGowan. The film is about a tour guide whose life takes a personal detour, while her group gets entangled in comic situations among the ruins, with a series of unexpected stops along the way. The film was released on June 5, 2009 in the United States, and May 7, 2009 in Greece.

Georgia (Nia Vardalos) is a Greek American tour guide who is leading a tour around Greece with an assorted group of misfit tourists who would rather buy a T-shirt than learn about history and culture. In a clash of personalities and cultures, everything seems to go wrong, until one day when an older traveler named Irv Gordon (Richard Dreyfuss), shows her how to have fun, and to take a good look at the last person she would ever expect to find love with, her Greek bus driver (Alexis Georgoulis)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_in_Ruins

Perhaps the greatest, most burning question on my mind is how the modern Greeks evolved out of the gods-fearing warriors of Homer...but let's let the film speak for itself. From the father of the bride in Wedding:

Gus Portokalos: There are two kinds of people - Greeks, and everyone else who wish they was Greek.

And then, there's the little matter of the Greek and world economies...join us!

[Demeter]

1. Before I forget: As of 6:20 EDT, no banks have failed

[Demeter]

14. 7 pm TWO BANKS DOWN

Mid City Bank, Inc., Omaha, Nebraska, was closed today by the Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Purdum State Bank, Purdum, Nebraska, to assume all of the deposits of Mid City Bank, Inc.

Beginning Saturday Purdum State Bank will change its name to Premier Bank, at which time the five branches of Mid City Bank, Inc., will reopen during their normal business hours under the new name...As of September 30, 2011, Mid City Bank, Inc. had approximately $106.1 million in total assets and $105.5 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Purdum State Bank agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $12.7 million. Compared to other alternatives, Purdum State Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Mid City Bank, Inc. is the 86th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Nebraska. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was TierOne Bank, Lincoln, on June 4, 2010.

SunFirst Bank, Saint George, Utah, was closed today by the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Cache Valley Bank, Logan, Utah, to assume most of the deposits of SunFirst Bank. The FDIC will retain approximately $15 million in deposits that may be subject to external litigation involving SunFirst Bank. The affected accounts were frozen prior to the failure of the bank. All other accounts were transferred to Cache Valley Bank.

The three branches of SunFirst Bank will reopen during their normal business hours beginning Saturday as branches of Cache Valley Bank...As of September 30, 2011, SunFirst Bank had approximately $198.1 million in total assets and $169.1 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming deposits of the failed bank, Cache Valley Bank agreed to purchase approximately $177.3 million of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC will retain the balance of the assets for later disposition.

The FDIC and Cache Valley Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on $128.9 million of SunFirst Bank's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $49.7 million. Compared to other alternatives, Cache Valley Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. SunFirst Bank is the 87th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Utah. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Advanta Bank Corp., Draper, on March 19, 2010.

WHY ALL THE HANKY-PANKY?

[Demeter]

58. TOTAL LOSS TO THE ECONOMY: $62.4M

[Tansy_Gold]

2. First Rec!

:hi:

[Demeter]

4. How is the Rock business, Tansy?

:hi:

[Tansy_Gold]

12. Hard. Very hard.

:evilgrin:

Big art show this week-end, so I've been working furiously.

And just to keep my post on topic, I would like to note that Academy Award winner and Greek-American actor/dancer George Chakiris is also a jewelry designer.

http://www.georgechakiris.com/





Tansy's designs are not quite as "substantial" as Chakiris' $875 sterling silver Scarab bracelet, but much more affordable!

[DemReadingDU]

46. Very pretty!

[Demeter]

3. Chris Hedges’ Speech in Front of Goldman Sachs Leads to Arrest By Chris Hedges

http://www.nationofchange.org/chris-hedges-speech-front-goldman-sachs-leads-arrest-1320422765

A ONE-MAN SHOW! CHRIS MAKES THE NEWS, AND THEN REPORTS IT!

Chris Hedges made this statement in New York City’s Zuccotti Park on Thursday morning during the People’s Hearing on Goldman Sachs, which he chaired with Dr. Cornel West. The activist and Truthdig columnist then joined a march of several hundred protesters to the nearby corporate headquarters of Goldman Sachs, where he was arrested with 16 others.

Goldman Sachs, which received more subsidies and bailout-related funds than any other investment bank because the Federal Reserve permitted it to become a bank holding company under its “emergency situation,” has used billions in taxpayer money to enrich itself and reward its top executives. It handed its senior employees a staggering $18 billion in 2009, $16 billion in 2010 and $10 billion in 2011 in mega-bonuses. This massive transfer of wealth upwards by the Bush and Obama administrations, now estimated at $13 trillion to $14 trillion, went into the pockets of those who carried out fraud and criminal activity rather than the victims who lost their jobs, their savings and often their homes...Goldman Sachs’ commodities index is the most heavily traded in the world. Goldman Sachs hoards rice, wheat, corn, sugar and livestock and jacks up commodity prices around the globe so that poor families can no longer afford basic staples and literally starve. Goldman Sachs is able to carry out its malfeasance at home and in global markets because it has former officials filtered throughout the government and lavishly funds compliant politicians—including Barack Obama, who received $1 million from employees at Goldman Sachs in 2008 when he ran for president. These politicians, in return, permit Goldman Sachs to ignore security laws that under a functioning judiciary system would see the firm indicted for felony fraud. Or, as in the case of Bill Clinton, these politicians pass laws such as the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that effectively removed all oversight and outside control over the speculation in commodities, one of the major reasons food prices have soared. In 2008 and again in 2010 prices for crops such as rice, wheat and corn doubled and even tripled, making life precarious for hundreds of millions of people. And it was all done so a few corporate oligarchs, the 1 percent, could make personal fortunes in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite a damning 650-page Senate subcommittee investigation report, no individual at Goldman Sachs has been indicted, although the report accuses Goldman of defrauding its clients.

When the government in the fall 2008 provided the firm with billions of dollars in the form of cheap loans, FDIC debt guarantees, TARP, AIG make-wholes, and a late-night label-shift from investment bank to bank holding company, giving the firm access to excessive Federal Reserve aid, access the corporation still has, it enabled and abetted Goldman’s criminal behavior. Goldman Sachs unloaded billions in worthless securities to its clients, decimating 401(k)s, pension and mutual funds. The firm misled investors about the true nature of these worthless securities, insisted the securities they were pushing on their clients were sound, and hid the material fact that, simultaneously, they were betting against these same securities—$2 billion against just one of their deals. The firm then had the gall to extort from its victims—us—to make good on its bets when the global economy it helped trash lost $40 trillion in worldwide wealth and huge insurance firms were unable to cover their bad debts.

The Securities Act of 1933, established in the wake of the massive fraud that pervaded the securities market before the 1929 Crash, was written to ensure that “any securities transactions are not based on fraudulent information or practices.” The act “prohibits deceit, misrepresentation, and other fraud in the sale of securities.” The subcommittee report indicates that Goldman Sachs clearly broke security laws....As part of the political theater that has come to replace the legislative and judicial process, the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to a $550 million settlement whereby Goldman Sachs admitted it showed “incomplete” information in marketing materials and that it was a “mistake” to not disclose the nature of its portfolio selection committee. This fine was a payoff to the SEC by Goldman Sachs of about four days’ worth of revenue, and in return they avoided going to court. CEO Lloyd Blankfein apparently not only lied to clients, but to the subcommittee itself on April 27, 2010, when he told lawmakers: “We didn’t have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients.” Yet, they did.

And yet nothing has been done. No Goldman Sachs officials have gone to trial. This is because there is no way within the corporate state to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. There is no way through the formal mechanisms of power to restore the rule of law. There is no way to protect the ordinary citizen and the poor around the globe from the predatory activity of financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs. Since our courts refuse to put on trial the senior executives at Goldman Sachs, including Blankfein, who carried out these crimes and lied to cover them up, we will. Speculators like those in Goldman Sachs—who in the 17th century when speculation was a crime would have been hanged—must be prevented by law from again destroying our economy, preying on ordinary citizens, hoarding food so the poor starve and running our political process. We are paying for these crimes—not those who orchestrated perhaps the most massive fraud in human history. Our teachers, police, firefighters and public employees are losing their jobs so speculators like Blankfein can make an estimated $250,000 a day. Working men and women are losing their homes and going into personal bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills. Our unemployed, far closer to 20 percent than the official 9 percent, are in deep distress all so a criminal class, a few blocks from where I speak, can wallow in luxury with mansions and yachts and swollen bank accounts.

What we are asking for today is simple—it is a return to the rule of law. And since the formal mechanisms of power refuse to restore the rule of law, then we, the 99 percent, will have to see that justice is done.

[Demeter]

5. Europe Debt Action Back on Course after Greeks Abandon Austerity Vote

http://www.nationofchange.org/europe-debt-action-back-course-after-greeks-abandon-austerity-vote-1320412714

Leaders of the world’s most industrialized nations scrambled Thursday to rescue a European Union deal to restructure Greek debts and prevent a regional financial crisis from spreading and creating further global economic disruption. President Barack Obama and his European Union counterparts held closed doors meetings looking for ways to salvage last week’s marathon EU deal and get the world's economy back on a growth path. They got some welcomed help when Greece's main opposition party agreed to honor a controversial austerity program that had been set last week as part of a deal to provide debt relief to Greece. That move headed off the likelihood that Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou would be forced from office over his proposal to put the austerity program to a vote of the Greek people _ a step that now seems off the table.

"This is absolutely the best-case scenario," said Jacob Kirkegaard, a Danish research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "We have gotten out of these two or three days of mayhem a longer, far more solid political commitment in Greece, which now becomes a bipartisan commitment for following through on these programs."

Thursday was a day of many moving parts in the crisis. The new head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, who took over Monday, lowered a key benchmark lending rate, signaling that he plans to do more than his predecessor to promote growth aggressively in a region important to the U.S. and global economies. Against the breathtaking backdrop of fast-moving events, Obama warned that the “most important” task for world leaders gathered in the French seaside playground of Cannes is resolution of Europe’s financial crisis. The U.S. president huddled privately with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on his arrival early Thursday for the G-20 Summit. The G-20 is comprised of the United States, EU and leaders of the 18 other most industrialized nations...Obama praised Sarkozy and Merkel for their work on the deal - which includes a Greek bailout, restricting of its debts and bolstering an EU-wide rescue fund — but said more clarity is needed.


The U.S.-led global financial crisis in 2008 has weakened America’s ability to tell others how to fix their finances. But G-20 host Sarkozy glossed over that, saying “we need the leadership of Barack Obama,” and welcomed input from U.S. officials...

ABOUT THAT "US-LED GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, BARRY...THINK YOU MIGHT WANT TO FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THAT FOR A FEW MINUTES?

[Demeter]

6. A MOVIE QUOTE:

Athena: I'm going to the Jewel. Listen, I'll get you some pantyhose.

Maria Portokalos: No queen size. They make me look fat.

[Demeter]

7. And of Course, there's ALWAYS "Zorba"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UgndyMfe-8

[Tansy_Gold]

17. There is always Melina

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnOox2Rmaow

[Demeter]

8. The Education Solution WORLD BANK VERSION By Mahmoud Mohieldin

http://www.nationofchange.org/education-solution-1320415107

THAT'S ALL WE NEED--GLOBAL BANKSTER INDOCTRINATION OF THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE

I CHALLENGE YOU TO READ THIS WITHOUT BECOMING ILL.

IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE BANKSTERS, THE WORLD WOULD BE A LOT LESS DYSFUNCTIONAL, AND THAT INCLUDES THE SCHOOLS AND THIS MORBID FEAR OF OBESITY THAT DOMINATES THE 1%. ARE THEY AFRAID THE 99% WILL SQUASH THEM?

[Demeter]

9. Too Big to Jail By Robert Scheer

http://www.nationofchange.org/too-big-jail-1320412438

Can we all agree that a $1 billion swindle represents a lot of money, and the fact that Citigroup agreed last week to pay a $285 million fine to settle SEC charges for “misleading investors” demonstrates a damning admission of culpability? So why has Robert Rubin, the onetime treasury secretary who went on to become Citigroup chairman during the time of the corporation’s financial shenanigans, never been held accountable for this and other deep damage done to the U.S. economy on his watch?

Rubin’s tenure atop the world of high finance began when he was co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, before he became Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary and pushed through the reversal of the Glass-Steagall Act, an action that legalized the formation of Citigroup and other “too big to fail” banking conglomerates. Rubin’s destructive impact on the economy in enabling these giant corporate banks to run amok was far greater than that of swindler Bernard Madoff, who sits in prison under a 150-year sentence while Rubin sits on the Harvard Board of Overseers, as chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and as a leader of the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project.

Rubin was rewarded for his efforts on behalf of Citigroup with a top job as chairman of the bank’s executive committee and at least $126 million in compensation. That was “compensation” for steering the bank to the point of a bankruptcy avoided only by a $45 billion taxpayer bailout and a further guarantee of $300 billion of the bank’s toxic assets. Those toxic assets and other collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps were exempted from government regulation by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Rubin helped design while he was treasury secretary and which was turned into law when Rubin protégé Lawrence Summers took over that Cabinet post.

In arguing that the derivatives market in housing mortgages and other debt obligations required no government oversight, Summers told Congress, “First, the parties to these kinds of contracts are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies. ... Second, given the nature of the underlying assets—namely supplies of financial exchange and other financial instruments—there would seem to be little scope for market manipulation. ...” Oops. One wonders if Summers, who went on to be president of Harvard after playing such a disastrous role in the federal government, ever asked his mentor Rubin what went wrong. After all, it was Rubin who was a honcho at the “sophisticated financial institution” of Citigroup when, as the Securities and Exchange Commission filing against the bank explains, Citigroup structured and marketed a $1 billion toxic asset to investors without disclosing that it was simultaneously betting against that asset. Back in January of 2008, knowing full well of the chicanery of his own bank and others with which he was quite familiar, Rubin nonetheless told an audience at Cooper Union in New York that the turmoil in the markets was “all part of a cycle of periodic excess leading to periodic disruption.” CNNMoney, reporting on his talk, noted that Rubin “doesn’t seem particularly alarmed. ... And the economic problems that he did acknowledge were blamed on just about everyone but the major financial players.”

MORE

[Hotler]

110. Robert Rubin, bite the curb you fucker.

I have to stop reading this stuff. it just pisses me off. To think that this president had a chance to do something about fuckers like Rubin but, all we heard was "now is not the time to point fingers".:grr:

[Tansy_Gold]

113. I totally agree. TOTALLY.

You're among friends, Hotler. We got you covered.

[Demeter]

10. Greek Government Teeters on the Brink of Collapse

http://www.nationofchange.org/greek-government-teeters-brink-collapse-1320336319

The political turmoil in Greece deepened Thursday as Prime Minister George Papandreou faced a serious revolt within his party over his plan to call a referendum on the country's membership in the Eurozone, pushing his government close to collapse.

Papandreou's finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, broke ranks and declared his opposition to the plebiscite. IT WOULD BE THE FINANCE MINISTER, OF COURSE. "Greece's position within the Euro area is a historic conquest of the country that cannot be put in doubt," Venizelos said in a statement early Thursday after returning from the G-20 summit in Cannes, France.

Other ministers are also beginning to voice their opposition to the referendum, barely more than 24 hours after Papandreou's Cabinet was said to have given him its "full backing" on the issue. And a handful of senior members of his ruling Socialist Party have openly urged him to resign. Papandreou has called an emergency Cabinet meeting for Thursday morning in Athens upon his own return from Cannes, where other European leaders starkly warned him that the referendum, if it goes ahead, could mean Greece's departure from the 17-nation Eurozone.

A vote of confidence in Papandreou is scheduled for Friday. He commands only a razor-thin majority in Parliament, and there is a real prospect now that he might lose the vote, which would force early elections and increase the uncertainty in Europe.

[Demeter]

11. Papandreou Prepared to Step Down If He Wins Confidence Vote

SAY WHAT?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-04/papandreou-is-prepared-to-step-aside-if-he-wins-confidence-vote-in-greece.html

Prime Minister George Papandreou said he’s prepared to step down if he wins a confidence vote tonight, after a rebellion by his ruling party over a bungled referendum raised the specter of early elections that would have pushed Greece to the brink of default.

The premier said he’ll meet with President Karolos Papoulias to discuss his decision to begin talks with opposition parties on creating a national unity government. The roll- call vote in parliament in Athens will be televised live on state-run Vouli TV and follows a three-day debate.

“I ask for a vote of confidence tonight so that we can secure the course of this country,” Papandreou said. “I have already communicated with the president of the republic to inform him that I intend to proceed with consultations for a government of cooperation.”

Papandreou’s offer caps a tumultuous week that started with him securing a second bailout from the European Union then roiling markets by unilaterally deciding to put the terms of that rescue to the Greek people in a vote. The premier must heal political divisions to secure agreement on the aid package before Greece runs out of funds next month.

“Papandreou, by bringing things to a head, has basically, without expecting this to happen, sacrificed his own political career,” Sassan Ghahramani, Chief Executive Officer of SGH Macro Advisors, said on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” “The price for that has been that the opposition party is now willing to cooperate with a transitional government if it comes into place and show a more united front towards the EU and IMF.”

[Demeter]

21. BREAKING NEWS: PAPANDREOU SURVIVES CONFIDENCE VOTE

Chorus grows for new Greek leader

Even though George Papandreou survived a crucial vote of confidence in parliament on Friday night, his position as Greek premier will remain at risk as a group of senior socialists have called for a government of national unity to be formed quickly under a new leader.

“This crisis won’t be over tonight. It will take time to burn itself out,” warned one analyst close to the socialist leadership. “The premier’s leadership will continue to be called into question.”

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/ZE9K33/2OM5BV/87I64/4CVJ08/U16A3P/OS/t?a1=2011&a2=11&a3=4

[Demeter]

22. Hrysoula Stefanaki sings an old Greek song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbnou2TrNag&feature=related

[Demeter]

70. Why Not Give Greeks Their Say? By FLOYD NORRIS

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/business/why-not-give-the-greeks-their-say.html?ref=business

3 GUESSES

[Demeter]

71. Greece may leave euro, leaders admit

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/03/greece-may-leave-euro-leaders-admit

[Demeter]

72. Festering anger, Nazi war crimes and the £60bn the Greeks believe the Germans owe them

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056400/Greece-debt-crisis-Greeks-believe-Germans-owe-60bn.html

The SS indulged their bloodlust on men, women and children alike. While homes and shops blazed around them like some hellish inferno, women were violated and those who were pregnant were stabbed in the guts. Small babies were bayoneted in their cribs. The village priest was beheaded...By the time Hitler’s men had left the Greek village of Distomo near the ancient town of Delphi on that bloody day in June 1944, 218 people were dead. The Waffen-SS was pleased with its work: the local partisans who had dared to attack a German unit had been taught a bitter lesson in revenge. The slaughter at Distomo was such an outrage that, in 2003, even a German Federal Court judge described it as ‘one of the most despicable crimes of World War II’. But he refused to grant the families of the victims any compensation for their suffering, and not a single German soldier was ever punished for what he and his comrades had done.

The Distomo massacre is just one example of the terrible suffering endured by the people of Greece during World War II and, some would say, of the German government’s reluctance to pay for the crimes committed against the Greeks in their nation’s name. Countless other villages could tell of similar atrocities. Some 60,000 Greek Jews — more than three-quarters of the nation’s Jewish population — were rounded up and sent to their deaths in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Yet, neither the massacres of villagers nor the ethnic cleansing of the Jews was the deadliest of torments inflicted on Greece. For the worst Nazi war crimes of all were essentially economic.

Hitler’s troops helped themselves to everything, stealing goods and food to such a degree that hundreds of thousands of Greeks were left destitute and starving. At least 300,000 Greeks died as a result. Hitler’s men even raided the Greeks’ central bank, forcing them to give Germany a massive ‘war loan’ — one that has never been paid back, more of which later. Economists estimate that if it were repaid today, it could cost the German government £60billion. The memory of that travesty has been reignited this week by Greeks angry at the austerity measures being imposed on them — primarily by Germany as it seeks to stop the euro crisis spinning out of control...


IF I WERE GERMAN, I WOULD BACK AWAY, VERY SLOWLY...

[Demeter]

102. Greece to Form a New Government

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203804204577017681710816056.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

Greece's embattled prime minister survived a no-confidence vote early Saturday but prepared to step down to make way for a multiparty government—easing some of the uncertainty that gripped Europe this week over whether the latest Greek bailout would go ahead.

Greek lawmakers sparred late into the night Friday ahead of the vote of confidence in George Papandreou, the 59-year-old scion of one of Greece's storied political families. Mr. Papandreou won, with all 153 of his fellow Socialists voting in his favor and 145 votes against.

He was expected to offer his resignation in order to form an interim government...

[Demeter]

41. Greece’s European identity at stake

Papandreou was counting on a younger generation accustomed to thinking of themselves as Europeans voting Yes in his proposed referendum

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/0QSDPP/08ZAB1/A5Q0X/5V2RCD/WT0VST/ZH/t?a1=2011&a2=11&a3=4

[Demeter]

13. The Best Greek Bouzouki Music Of All Times!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXuDYq42O8E&feature=related

[Demeter]

15. Occupy the European Central Bank By Dean Baker

http://www.nationofchange.org/occupy-european-central-bank-1320335110


... there is probably no place better for people to plant themselves than on the steps of the European Central Bank (ECB). More than any other institution the ECB is responsible for the economic wreckage that has overtaken the European economy. In the years when housing bubbles were building across the much of the eurozone and the United States, the ECB looked the other way. Its position at the time was that these bubbles and the huge imbalances they created were not its concern. Its concern was keeping the inflation rate at 2.0 percent. This single-minded obsession with the inflation rate at a time when the economies of the eurozone and the world were on the edge of disaster is akin to Kodak insisting that its business line was photographic film at a time when digital photography was exploding. Competent business people adjust their business plans when the world changes. In the same vein, competent central bankers reorder their priorities when the economic situation requires changes.

But the ECB ignored the housing bubbles and the economy came crashing down around them. This may have been due to incompetence or it may have something to do with the fact that many of their friends in the banking industry were making lots of money financing the bubbles. Either way the consequences for the European people are the same....However, this was only the beginning point for the ECB’s attack on the European people. With the European economy badly depressed, just like the U.S. economy, the responsibility of the central bank is to do whatever it can to reflate the economy to get growth up and unemployment down. The Federal Reserve Board has to some extent picked up this charge, pushing its overnight lending rate to zero and engaging in multiple rounds of quantitative easing....The ECB has been much less ambitious. It never lowered its lending rate below 1.0 percent. Remarkably, it actually began to raise rates last spring, apparently out of concern for inflation, even as the eurozone economies remain far below any measure of potential GDP.

But this is not the worst of the ECB’s plans for the people of the eurozone. The ECB, along with the European Commission and IMF (often referred to as the “troika”), has been taking advantage of the fiscal crises created by its own mismanagement to take away gains that Europe’s workers have won over the last four decades. They have done this piecemeal; imposing harsh demands on one country after another as a condition of getting the support that they need to finance their deficits. This is especially pernicious because the ECB’s relatively tight monetary policy has directly contributed to the budget crises by slowing growth and leading to higher interest rates on government debt. Furthermore, the government cutbacks demanded by the ECB also slow growth, making the deficit problems even worse. And the cutbacks instituted in one country invariably feedback on its trading partners. In other words, if Greece and Spain buy fewer imports, because the ECB has demanded that they cut back their budgets, then France and Italy will have fewer exports. In this way, the growth slowdown becomes self-perpetuating and the crisis becomes ever deeper. Rather than reversing course and encouraging policies that will promote growth and employment, the ECB and its troika partners are taking advantage of the situation to demand that countries make changes such as raising the retirement age, lowering the minimum wage, and reduce employment protections for workers. Insofar as the ECB gets its way, most of Europe’s population will be much worse off. Of course, European business leaders might still be happy, since higher unemployment rates and weaker protections will give employers much more power over their workers.

It is important that the European people recognize that the ECB is not operating as a neutral institution that is trying to foster growth and economic stability. It is pushing an agenda that seeks to bolster the interests of the wealthy to the detriment of the rest of the population. And it has the ability to impose its will over the objections of democratically elected governments through the enormous economic power that it has been given. For this reason, the ECB is an ideal target for a popular movement. If the people of Europe want to have control over their destiny they cannot allow a small clique to run the central bank for their interests. This is a problem that we also face in the United States, but the Federal Reserve is a bastion of democratically accountability compared with the ECB. If there was ever a place that needs to be occupied by people looking to retake control over their lives, it is the ECB.

[Demeter]

16. Wall St. vs Greece VIDEO PODCAST

http://www.nationofchange.org/wall-street-v-greece-1320330569

[Demeter]

20. Greece’s Choice and Ours: Democracy or Finance? By Robert Reich

http://www.nationofchange.org/greece-s-choice-and-ours-democracy-or-finance-1320334696

Which do you trust more: democracy or financial markets?

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou decided in favor of democracy yesterday when he announced a national referendum on the draconian budget cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding from Greece in return for bailing it out. (Or, more accurately, the cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding for bailing out big European banks that have lent Greece lots of money and stand to lose big if Greece defaults on those loans – not to mention Wall Street banks that will also suffer because of their intertwined financial connections with European banks.)

If Greek voters accept the bailout terms, unemployment will rise even further in Greece, public services will be cut more than they have already, the Greek economy will contract, and the standard of living of most Greeks will deteriorate further....If Greek voters reject the terms and the nation defaults, it will face far higher borrowing costs in the future. This may reduce the standard of living of most Greeks, too. But it doesn’t have to. Without the austerity measures the rest of Europe and the IMF are demanding, the Greek economy has a better chance of growing and more Greeks are likely to find jobs.

Shouldn’t Greek citizens make this decision for themselves?

Of course, if Greek defaults on its loans, global investors (fearing that a default in Greece sets a dangerous precedent) may yank their money out of Italy. This would almost certainly bust several big European banks – and generate panic on Wall Street. That’s why Tim Geithner has been pressing Europe to bail out Greece....We’ve been here before, remember? Specifically, here in the United States — at the end of 2008 and start of 2009. Wall Street had made lots of bad loans, and the question we faced then was whether to bail out the Street. The difference is, we didn’t hold a referendum. Instead, the Bush administration told Congress the nation risked “economic Armageddon” if it didn’t immediately authorize a giant bailout of the Street – with no strings attached. Of course Congress hastily agreed. Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Tim Geithner (as head of the New York Fed) then doled out the money. And the Obama administration (with Geithner installed as Treasury Secretary) gave out more. So instead of allowing the Street to live with the consequences of its negligence, we bailed it out – and allowed the Main Streets of America to suffer the consequences.

If Americans had been consulted about the 2008-2009 Wall Street bailout, I doubt it would have happened the way it did. At the very least, strict conditions would have been placed on the banks in return for the money. The banks would have had to eat the losses of the predatory mortgages they sold, and help homeowners reduce those mortgages. They’d be required to improve the capitalization of small banks in communities across the country. They’d be forced to accept stringent new regulations, including resurrection of Glass-Steagall. But Americans weren’t really consulted. It was an inside job. As a result, Wall Street has prospered but the rest of the nation hasn’t. One out of four homeowners is underwater, owing more on their homes than the homes are worth. And with the worst economy since the Great Depression, we’re now embarking on fiscal austerity. Either Congress’s super-committee comes up with $1.2 trillion of federal budget cuts that Congress agrees to – going into effect a little over thirteen months from now – or $1.5 trillion of cuts are made across the board. Meanwhile, states and cities have been slashing public services for the past three years.

So which is it? Rule by democracy or by financial markets? Based on what’s happened in America, I’d choose the former.

[Demeter]

23. Wall Street is Still Playing Us for Suckers By Richard Cohen

http://www.nationofchange.org/wall-street-still-playing-us-suckers-1320245418

As a mere youth, I bought a used car in New York to drive to California to be with the woman of my dreams. Inexplicably, she decided to rush back to New York, so I promptly took the car back to the dealer. He made a shockingly low offer. The car had been in an accident, he explained. The chassis was bent. I was flabbergasted. I had just bought the car from him. If the chassis was bent, it was bent when I bought it. The salesman offered me a take-it-or-leave-it shrug. He probably now works on Wall Street. That the morality of the used car lot has been adopted by Wall Street is now abundantly clear. Citigroup recently settled a civil complaint in which it was accused of selling mortgage-related investments that it knew were dogs. It was so certain that the investments were the financial equivalent of my used car that it bet against them — heads I win, tails you lose — and even selected the investments themselves, choosing from a cupboard of depleted and exhausted financial instruments. An investment in the Brooklyn Bridge would have been safer.

These investments are known as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), and they consisted of the sort of mortgage securities that nearly sunk the U.S. financial system. According to federal regulators, they were sold with the full knowledge that they were careening toward worthlessness and that, by deduction, their buyers were patsies. The bank made substantial profits on them. But when the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to act, it got Citigroup to pony up a mere $285 million fine that, to presumed chuckles, will doubtlessly be taken out of petty cash. The bank last quarter reported a profit of $3.8 billion...Mirth must have turned to guffaws when Citigroup read on. It did not even have to admit guilt — “without admitting or denying” is the language the SEC used — and no single executive was held culpable. The CDOs, apparently, were contrived by no one and sold by no one. There’s a Nobel Prize in something (maybe alchemy) for anyone who can explain how that happened.

The Citigroup settlement is being reviewed by a perplexed U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff. Among other things, he wants to know why he should authorize a settlement “in which the SEC alleges a serious securities fraud but the defendant neither admits nor denies wrongdoing.” This is a marvelous question that goes to the heart of the matter. The settlement is itself a CDO, a legal version of a black hole in which next to nothing is disclosed. Why no guilt? Why no guilty people? Why such a non-punishing punishment? The SEC will have to tell it to the judge.

I do not want to be excessively harsh on dear Citigroup. It was not the only one selling smoke. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan did something similar. In the words of Jesse Eisinger of the online journalistic group ProPublica, “This was the Wall Street business model.” And it was a model permitted and encouraged from the top, by people who became filthy rich from filthy practices and now take umbrage when President Obama calls out their industry for approbation. They should first spend a year in community service and then, if they still feel slighted, denounce Obama...As for Obama’s government, it has been too gentle with these miscreants. Why not a single major banker has been cuffed and frog-marched to some Financial District Guantanamo is unclear. Why their firms have gotten off with modest fines and non-confession confessions is not clear, either. That, in itself, is a crime. Somebody has to break this culture. In this sense, Wall Street is no different than the New York Police Department, where it apparently has been customary to fix traffic tickets for friends, family and — almost certainly — the odd person with some cash. When 16 of the alleged ticket-fixers were arraigned last week, hundreds of off-duty cops came to cheer them, denounce the DA and manhandle reporters. Their union took a firm position in defending this behavior. An appalled city awaits firm action by the mayor and police commissioner. An appalled nation awaits a similar response to what went on in the financial sector. What we would like to see is some version of a public hanging, the appropriate reaction to the breathtaking fleecing of investors. In the end, those investors got their money back. That’s more than we can say about our lost faith in justice.

[kickysnana]

18. A collegue visited cousins in Greece shortly after Wellstone's suspicious death..

Actually it was on an Greek Island but anyway they brought up, matter-of-factly, that they were surprised that the Americans were killing off our liberal Senators.

They know where we are, how many Americans can correctly locate Greece, let alone name a Senator there.

[Demeter]

19. U.S. Carbon Emissions Down Seven Percent in Four Years By Lester Brown

http://www.nationofchange.org/us-carbon-emissions-down-seven-percent-four-years-1320332562

Between 2007 and 2011, carbon emissions from coal use in the United States dropped 10 percent. During the same period, emissions from oil use dropped 11 percent. In contrast, carbon emissions from natural gas use increased by six percent. The net effect of these trends was that U.S. carbon emissions dropped seven percent in four years. And this is only the beginning.


The initial fall in coal and oil use was triggered by the economic downturn, but now powerful new forces are reducing the use of both. For coal, the dominant force is the Beyond Coal campaign, an impressive national effort coordinated by the Sierra Club involving hundreds of local groups that oppose coal because of its effects on human health. In the first phase, the campaign actively opposed the building of new coal-fired power plants. This hugely successful initiative, which led to a near de facto moratorium on new coal plants, was powered by Americans' dislike of coal. An Opinion Research Corporation poll found only three percent preferred coal as their electricity source - which is no surprise. Coal plant emissions are a leading cause of respiratory illnesses (such as asthma in children) and mercury contamination. Coal burning causes 13,200 U.S. deaths each year, a loss of life that exceeds U.S. combat losses in 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The campaign's second phase is dedicated to closing existing coal plants. Of the U.S. total of 492 coal-fired power plants, 68 are already slated to close. With current and forthcoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air quality regulations on emissions of mercury, sulfur, and ozone precursors requiring costly retrofits, many more of the older, dirtier plants will be closed.


In August, the American Economic Review - the country's most prestigious economics journal - published an article that can only be described as an epitaph for the coal industry. The authors conclude that the economic damage caused by air pollutants from coal burning exceeds the value of the electricity produced by coal-fired power plants. Coal fails the cost-benefit analysis even before the costs of climate change are tallied....The move to close coal plants comes at a time when electricity use for lighting will be falling fast as old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs are phased out. In compliance with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, by January 2012 there will be no 100-watt incandescent light bulbs on store shelves. By January 2014, the 75-watt, 60-watt, and 40-watt incandescents will also disappear from shelves. As inefficient incandescents are replaced by compact fluorescents and LEDs, electricity use for lighting can drop by 80 percent. And much of the switch will occur within a few years. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that residential electricity use per person will drop by five percent during this decade as light bulbs are replaced and as more-efficient refrigerators, water heaters, television sets, and other household appliances come to market.


Even as coal plants are closing, the use of wind, solar, and geothermally generated electricity is growing fast. Over the last four years, more than 400 wind farms - with a total generating capacity of 27,000 megawatts - have come online, enough to supply eight million homes with electricity. (See data at www.earth- policy.org.) Nearly 300,000 megawatts of proposed wind projects are in the pipeline awaiting access to the grid. Texas, long the leading oil-producing state, is now the leading generator of electricity from wind. When the transmission lines linking the rich wind resources of west Texas and the Texas panhandle to the large cities in central and eastern Texas are completed, wind electric generation in the state will jump dramatically. In installed wind-generating capacity, Texas is followed by Iowa, California, Minnesota, and Illinois. In the share of electricity generation in the state coming from wind, Iowa leads at 20 percent. With electricity generated by solar panels, the United States has some 22,000 megawatts of utility-scale projects in the pipeline. And this does not include residential installations.


Closing coal plants also cuts oil use. With coal use falling, the near 40 percent of freight rail diesel fuel that is used to move coal from mines to power plants will also drop. In fact, oil use has fallen fast in the United States over the last four years, thus reversing another long-term trend of rising consumption. The reasons for this include a shrinkage in the size of the national fleet, the rising fuel efficiency of new cars, and a reduction in the miles driven per vehicle. Fleet size peaked at 250 million cars in 2008 just as the number of cars being scrapped eclipsed sales of new cars. Aside from economic conditions, car sales are down because many young people today are much less automobile-oriented than their parents. In addition, the fuel efficiency of new cars, already rising, will soon increase sharply. The most recent efficiency standards mandate that new cars sold in 2025 use only half as much fuel as those sold in 2010. Thus with each passing year, the U.S. car fleet becomes more fuel-efficient, using less gasoline. Miles driven per car are declining because of higher gasoline prices, the continuing recession, and the shift to public transit and bicycles. Bicycles are replacing cars as cities create cycling infrastructure by building bike paths, creating dedicated bike lanes, and installing sidewalk parking racks. Many U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York, are introducing bike-sharing programmes. Furthermore, when people retire and no longer commute, miles driven drop by a third to a half. With so many baby boomers now retiring, this too will lower gasoline use. As plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars come to market, electricity will replace gasoline. An analysis by Professor Michael McElroy of Harvard indicates that running a car on wind-generated electricity could cost the equivalent of 80-cent-a-gallon gasoline....We are now looking at a situation where the seven percent decline in carbon emissions since the 2007 peak could expand to 20 percent by 2020, and possibly even to 30 percent. If so, the United States could become a world leader in cutting carbon emissions and stabilising climate.


*Data and additional resources available at www.earth-policy.org. Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of "World on the Edge".

[Demeter]

49. In Colorado, a Power Struggle Towards Moving to Municipally Owned Energy

http://www.truth-out.org/colorado-power-struggle-towards-moving-municipally-owned-energy/1319990106

...debate is focused on electricity, specifically whether this city should, in Tuesday’s election, sever its relationship with a corporate utility and move toward a home-ruled, municipally owned one that would be environmentally greener and locally accountable.

Kristin Johnson, a 57-year-old lawyer, summed up her planned vote to oust the company, Xcel Energy, in seven succinct words.

“They don’t have our interest at heart,” she said.

Xcel, a Minneapolis-based company that supplies electricity across eight states, including most of Colorado, is fighting back hard, arguing that a divorce would be devastatingly expensive for Boulder residents through higher electricity rates and start-up costs. And if talk of home-rule is really about having more renewable, carbon-reduced energy generation, well then, the company has said in advertisements and letters to residents, a big corporation with deep pockets can help get there cheaper and faster than any city, however well intentioned...

[Hotler]

24. k&r thank you. eom.

[Demeter]

25. Bill Sponsors Get Big Campaign Donations from Corporations that Want Tax Holiday By Aaron Mehta

http://www.nationofchange.org/bill-sponsors-get-big-campaign-donations-corporations-want-tax-holiday-1320248734

LET'S CALL IT WHAT IT IS: CORRUPTION!

Almost 70 members of Congress co-sponsoring legislation for a massive tax holiday have received almost a million dollars in campaign contributions from the corporations that would benefit most. Among the leading advocates for a bill that would allow the firms to pay cut-rate taxes on a trillion dollars these firms have stashed offshore is the WIN America campaign, a coalition of trade groups and companies like Apple, Pfizer and Google. An iWatch News analysis of campaign finance data has found that 68 of the 80 sponsors of the legislation in the House and Senate have received donations from WIN-affiliated companies since the start of 2009, taking in more than $940,000. In addition to contributions to lawmakers, the WIN affiliates gave huge amounts to the two national political parties. The national committees for the Republicans got at least $576,000 while their Democratic counterparts collected at least $408,000 during this period.For a select group of companies that would benefit most from the tax holiday, the stakes are high. When the holiday was granted once before, in 2004, some of the wealthiest corporations had their taxes cut by billions of dollars. Pfizer profited to the tune of $37 billion; Merck by $15.9 billion, Hewlett-Packard by $14.5 billion and IBM and Johnson & Johnson by some $10 billion each.

Given the number of tech firms that stand to benefit from the tax holiday, it is no surprise California Democrats with Silicon Valley connections are among the top recipients. Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren, who both claim part of Silicon Valley in their districts, are among the 11 Democrats to co-sponsor the House bill. They ranked first and second in funds received from WIN affiliates among co-sponsors of the bill, with Eshoo receiving more than $64,000 and Lofgren bringing in at least $53,000. California Sen. Barbara Boxer ranks fourth on the list with more than $51,000 in donations...The primary sponsors of the Senate bill have gotten generous contributions: Sens. Kay Hagan (D-N.C., at least $43,000) and John McCain (R-Ariz., at least $32,000). In fact, every one of the 11 co-sponsors of the Senate bill received funding from WIN affiliated groups, bringing in a total of more than $347,000 during this period...In the House, primary sponsors have been similarly rewarded: Reps. Kevin Brady (R-Texas, at least $28,000) and Jim Matheson (D-Utah, at least $32,000). The corporations that have been most generous to co-sponsors are Microsoft (at least $206,000), Pfizer (at least $168,000), Duke Energy (at least $121,000), Devon Energy (at least $76,000) and Cisco (at least $76,000).

The WIN America campaign is aimed at passage of “repatriation,” a tax holiday on profits that are kept offshore by American companies. Given the stunted economy, bringing those funds home is an attractive proposition to many, but critics warn the policy would simply be a giveaway to wealthy corporations .
Among the WIN coalition members are major corporations such as Apple, Oracle, Pfizer and Microsoft, along with powerful trade groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The backers of the two repatriation bills – “ The Freedom to invest Act of 2011 ” in the House and the “ Foreign Earnings Reinvestment Act ” in the Senate—are primarily Republicans, but there are some notable Democrats who have signed on to champion the cause. One group of lawmakers that has particularly benefitted from the WIN affiliates is the Blue Dog Democrats in the House. A group of pro-business, primarily Southern Dems, the Blue Dogs were poised to wield massive power in Congress before being decimated in the 2010 elections, dropping from 54 members to just 25. Every single remaining member of the Blue Dog coalition has received some money from WIN affiliated companies during this time period, to the tune of at least $260,000. Additionally, the Blue Dog PAC , which funnels cash towards the coalition members, received another $50,000 from these companies. The potential payoff? Five of the 11 House Democrats co-sponsoring the bill are Blue Dogs, including coalition leaders Reps. John Barrow of Georgia, Mike Ross of Arkansas, Dan Boren of Oklahoma and Jim Matheson of Utah, a primary sponsor on the bill. On Oct. 12, WIN America put out a press release trumpeting the support of the Blue Dogs for a repatriation holiday, which included a letter from the coalition leadership to the chairs of the Super Congress charged with finding ways to cut costs. The letter called for the passage of a “bipartisan, common-sense policy that would bring up to $1.4 trillion in private money back to the United States.”

MUCH MUCH MORE AT LINK

Numbers in this story were compiled using data from the subscription-only CQMoneyLine. The totals include donations made to the politician’s campaigns and leadership PACs from Jan. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2011.

[Demeter]

26. Feds File Massive Fraud Case against Allied Home Mortgage By Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber

http://www.nationofchange.org/feds-file-massive-fraud-case-against-allied-home-mortgage-1320243756

Federal prosecutors sued Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp. and two top executives Tuesday, accusing them of running a massive fraud scheme that cost the government at least $834 million in insurance claims on defaulted home loans. Houston-based Allied and its founder and chief executive, Jim Hodge, were the subject of July 2010 stories by ProPublica, which detailed a trail of alleged misconduct, lawsuits and government sanctions spanning at least 18 states and seven years. Borrowers recounted how they had been lied to by Allied employees, who in some cases had siphoned the loan proceeds for personal gain. Some borrowers lost their homes. Despite years of warnings, the federal government had not — until this week — impaired the company's ability to issue new mortgages.

The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, seeks triple damages and civil penalties, which could total $2.5 billion. Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended the company and Hodge from issuing loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. The company was also barred from issuing mortgage-backed securities through the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae). Allied has billed itself as the nation's largest, privately held mortgage broker, with some 200 branches. (At one point, the company operated more than 600.) The sprawling network made Hodge a rich man with properties in three states and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and two airplanes to get to them.

Allied and Hodge played the "lending industry equivalent of heads-I-win and tails-you-lose," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a news conference Tuesday. "The losers here were American taxpayers and the thousands of families who faced foreclosure because they could not ultimately fulfill their obligations on mortgages that were doomed to fail." The government's complaint alleges that between 2001 and 2010, Allied originated 112,324 home mortgages backed by the FHA, which typically go to moderate- and low-income borrowers. Of those, nearly 32 percent — 35,801 — defaulted, resulting in more than $834 million in insurance claims paid by HUD. In 2006 and 2007, the company's default rate was a "staggering" 55 percent, the complaint said. In addition, another 2,509 mortgages are currently in default, which could result in another $363 million in insurance claims paid by HUD.

Borrowers told ProPublica last year that company employees falsified records to bolster their credit worthiness and lured them into unaffordable deals by lying about the terms...The government's complaint says: "Allied has profited for years as one of the nation's largest FHA lenders by engaging in reckless mortgage lending, flouting the requirements of the FHA mortgage insurance program and repeatedly lying about its compliance."

MORE DETAIL AT LINK

[Demeter]

27. FOR THE LATEST IN OWS--THEIR OWN WEBSITE

http://owsnews.org/

[Demeter]

30. Iraq/Afghan Veterans Finally Fighting for a War Worth Winning: Occupy Wall Street

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13124

Some Iraq/Afghanistan veterans finally are fighting in a war worth winning: the battle for America's 99 percent.

On Wednesday, in a dramatic display of support for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, veterans of America's recent wars for oil marched and spoke in support of OWS. They were not the first veterans to back economic democracy at home, in this case with a military precision march through southern Manhattan. Indeed, many of them participated in yesterday's show of support for OWS in honor of Scott Olsen. Olsen is still recovering from a traumatic head injury sustained in last Tuesday's Oakland Police Department assault on Occupy Oakland.

A few weeks ago, a video clip went viral of an Iraq war veteran, in uniform, berating New York Police Department (NYPD) members for their continued attacks on OWS protesters. It was a remarkably dramatic moment, with one former marine facing off against a phalanx of NYPD officers. "Why are you hurting these people?" the former marine exclaimed, "There is no honor in this."

It is speculative, but undoubtedly true, that few of the top 1 percent or their offspring serve as the cannon fodder in our wars for oil, natural resources and geo-positioning for corporate markets. Just look at Mitt Romney's five sons. Not a one of them entered the military....

WHEN UNIONS, VETERANS, COLLEGE KIDS, AND RETIREES GET TOGETHER, THE 1% ARE FACING TOTAL DEFEAT.

[Demeter]

43. Port of Oakland Running at Half Capacity After Wildcat Strike in Solidarity With Occupy Oakland

http://www.truth-out.org/source-port-oakland-effectively-shut-down-solidarity-occupy-oakland-general-strike/1320253405

WEDNESDAY---

Despite push-back from union leaders and the management at the Port of Oakland, rank and file longshoremen are adamant that many longshoremen decided not to work today and disrupted work at the Port of Oakland today, in solidarity with the general strike called by the Occupy Oakland protesters.

Richard Washington, a longshoreman who refused work today, told Truthout about his intentions. "This wasn't ordered or suggested by the union leaders, the rank and file workers decided to not work today in support of Occupy Oakland. I am one of the longshoremen who did not take a job. The majority of the longshoremen at the hiring hall this morning decided not to take jobs. For the most part it was longshoremen walking off in solidarity with the general strike," adding "tonight, there will be a picket line and I don't think any longshoremen will cross the picket line."

[Demeter]

44. Senators Introduce Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United

http://www.truth-out.org/senators-introduce-constitutional-amendment-overturn-citizens-united/1320248000

WEDNESDAY-- six Democratic senators — Tom Udall (NM), Michael Bennett (CO), Tom Harkin (IA), Dick Durbin (IL), Chuck Schumer (NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), and Jeff Merkeley (OR) — introduced a constitutional amendment that would effectively overturn the Citizens United case and restore the ability of Congress to properly regulate the campaign finance system.

The amendment as filed resolves that both Congress and individual states shall have the power to regulate both the amount of contributions made directly to candidates for elected office and “the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.”

“By limiting the influence of big money in politics, elections can be more about the voters and their voices, not big money donors and their deep pockets,” said Harkin of the amendment. “We need to have a campaign finance structure that limits the influence of the special interests and restores confidence in our democracy. This amendment goes to the heart of that effort.”

Passing this amendment or any other amendment to the Constitution is an arduous process. There are two ways to propose a constitutional amendment. Either two-thirds of Congress can agree to an amendment or there can be a constitutional amendment called by two-thirds of state legislatures (this path has never been taken). In order to ratify an amendment, three-quarters of state legislatures must agree or three-quarters of states must have individual constitutional conventions that agree.

[Demeter]

47. Robert Reich: The Occupiers’ Responsive Chord

http://www.truth-out.org/occupiers-responsive-chord/1320170038

A combination of police crackdowns and bad weather are testing the young Occupy movement. But rumors of its demise are premature, to say the least. Although numbers are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests the movement is growing. As importantly, the movement has already changed the public debate in America....Consider, for example, last week’s Congressional Budget Office report on widening disparities of income in America. It was hardly news – it’s already well known that the top 1 percent now gets 20 percent of the nation’s income, up from 9 percent in the late 1970s. But it’s the first time such news made the front page of the nation’s major newspapers. Why? Because for the first time in more than half a century, a broad cross-section of the American public is talking about the concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top. Score a big one for the Occupiers.

Even more startling is the change in public opinion. Not since the 1930s has a majority of Americans called for redistribution of income or wealth. But according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, an astounding 66 percent of Americans said the nation’s wealth should be more evenly distributed. A similar majority believes the rich should pay more in taxes. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, even a majority of people who describe themselves as Republicans believe taxes should be increased on the rich. I remember the days when even raising the subject of inequality made you a “class warrior.” Now, it seems, most Americans have become class warriors. And they blame Republicans for stacking the deck in favor of the rich. On that New York Times/CBS News poll, 69 percent of respondents said Republican policies favor the rich (28 percent said the same of Obama’s policies).

The old view was anyone could make it in America with enough guts and gumption. We believed in the self-made man (or, more recently, woman) who rose from rags to riches – inventors and entrepreneurs born into poverty, like Benjamin Franklin; generations of young men from humble beginnings who grew up to became president, like Abe Lincoln. We loved the novellas of Horatio Alger, and their more modern equivalents – stories that proved the American dream was open to anyone who worked hard. In that old view, being rich was proof of hard work, and lack of money proof of indolence or worse. As Herman Cain still says “if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.” But Cain’s line isn’t hitting a responsive chord. In fact, he’s backtracked from it (along with much of the rest of what he’s said).

A profound change has come over America. Guts, gumption, and hard work don’t seem to pay off as they once did – or at least as they did in our national morality play. Instead, the game seems rigged in favor of people who are already rich and powerful – as well as their children. Instead of lionizing the rich, we’re beginning to suspect they gained their wealth by ripping us off...Americans know a rigged game when they see one. They understand how much money is flowing into politics from the super rich, big corporations, and Wall Street — in order to keep their taxes low and entrench their privileged position. The Occupy movement is gaining ground because it’s hitting a responsive chord. What happens from here on depends on whether other Americans begin to march to the music — and organize.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

56. Oakland Police Violated 2004 Agreement Limiting Use of Militarized Weapons to Disperse Crowds

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13109

...What occurred this week in Oakland - including the wounding of Olsen - shouldn't have happened. In June of 2004, the Oakland Police Department reached an agreement to refrain from using the kind of bloody and militarized tactics that they employed earlier this week.

According to a November 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article:

Oakland police will no longer indiscriminately use wooden or rubber bullets, Taser stun guns, pepper spray and motorcycles to break up crowds, under an agreement announced Friday....

The new policy settles part of a federal class-action lawsuit filed by 52 people who claimed their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly were violated as they targeted two shipping companies with contracts tied to the war in Iraq.

"What we've done is create a comprehensive policy that really provides a much more sensible, reasoned approach to managing demonstrations and crowds," said Rachel Lederman of the National Lawyers Guild in San Francisco.

Obviously, as Olsen's situation demonstrates, the Oakland Police did not adhere to the letter or spirit of the 2004 agreement on Tuesday night. Lederman told the San Francisco Chronicle that when the policy was negotiated, "these projectile weapons are very dangerous. It was only a matter of luck that someone wasn't killed on April 7, 2003, in Oakland. That's what we're trying to prevent."

Lederman is referring to a 2003 Oakland police riot against anti-Iraq war demonstrators that resulted in the serious wounding of many protesters. In fact, according to ThinkProgress, "the demonstrators were not without recourse. They took the city to court, and Oakland eventually awarded $2 million to 58 demonstrators for police abuses."

You would think that after signing an agreement and paying out taxpayer money to "compensate" for abusive police practices, the Oakland Police Department would learn how to behave in a civilized fashion when dealing with people exercising their First Amendment rights...

[Demeter]

28. Prominent Silicon Valley businessman to divest Bank of America funds

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_19258590?source=rss

A prominent member of Silicon Valley's exclusive "1 percent" club is pulling his money out of Bank of America and cutting all ties with the bank -- and he hopes others will follow his lead.

Mike Fox Sr., a beer magnate and well-known philanthropist, is set to announce Friday that he is divesting his long-held personal Bank of America account, which contains several hundred thousand dollars, in an effort to promote social and economic justice.

Fox said Thursday that he has also asked his executive team to move a $4 million-plus line of credit held by M.E. Fox & Co. from Bank of America to another institution. Fox's firm is a 46-year-old wholesale distributor of beer, water, New Age beverages and Red Bull energy drink.

"I think the only way I can influence people is through my personal example," said Fox, 75, who called the amount he was divesting "rather small compared to the egregiousness" of Bank of America's slow response in modifying home mortgages. Colleen Haggerty, a Bank of America spokeswoman, on Thursday declined to comment on the matter "due to customer privacy laws." But last month she told this newspaper that the bank has made more loan modifications than any other lender and had modified more than 193,000 mortgages in California since the housing crisis began in 2008.

[Demeter]

36. Bank of America plans $2.8bn share issue

Capital raising will dilute bank’s existing shareholder base

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/NA70KK/97YDVV/XBAN6/EXKHDM/PFTBYC/YT/t?a1=2011&a2=11&a3=4

[Hugin]

95. Probably to soon be followed by a 10 for 1 reverse stock split which will go almost unremarked on..

By the Corporate Media.

Just like Citibank did.

These guys are getting predictable.

[Demeter]

29. BP fined $50 million for violating Texas Clean Air Act

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bay_area/news/bp-fined-million-for-violating-texas-clean-air-act/article_4a038500-063a-11e1-a5c4-001cc4c002e0.html

Oil company BP agreed to pay the state of Texas $50 million for violating Texas emissions standards at its Texas City refinery since 2005.

The fine was agreed upon in a settlement with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's office.

"The state of Texas is sending a strong and clear message,"Abbott said at a press conference Thursday morning, "and that is for companies who do business in the state of Texas: Don't mess with Texas air quality."

He said while Houston and Texas recognizes the importance of energy-based businesses for the state, companies have to understand that they have to follow rules.

[Demeter]

31. Oligarchy, American Style By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/oligarchy-american-style.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street, but with an assist from the Congressional Budget Office. And you know what that means: It’s time to roll out the obfuscators! Anyone who has tracked this issue over time knows what I mean. Whenever growing income disparities threaten to come into focus, a reliable set of defenders tries to bring back the blur. Think tanks put out reports claiming that inequality isn’t really rising, or that it doesn’t matter. Pundits try to put a more benign face on the phenomenon, claiming that it’s not really the wealthy few versus the rest, it’s the educated versus the less educated.

So what you need to know is that all of these claims are basically attempts to obscure the stark reality: We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only. The budget office laid out some of that stark reality in a recent report, which documented a sharp decline in the share of total income going to lower- and middle-income Americans. We still like to think of ourselves as a middle-class country. But with the bottom 80 percent of households now receiving less than half of total income, that’s a vision increasingly at odds with reality.

In response, the usual suspects have rolled out some familiar arguments: the data are flawed (they aren’t); the rich are an ever-changing group (not so); and so on. The most popular argument right now seems, however, to be the claim that we may not be a middle-class society, but we’re still an upper-middle-class society, in which a broad class of highly educated workers, who have the skills to compete in the modern world, is doing very well...It’s a nice story, and a lot less disturbing than the picture of a nation in which a much smaller group of rich people is becoming increasingly dominant. But it’s not true. Workers with college degrees have indeed, on average, done better than workers without, and the gap has generally widened over time. But highly educated Americans have by no means been immune to income stagnation and growing economic insecurity. Wage gains for most college-educated workers have been unimpressive (and nonexistent since 2000), while even the well-educated can no longer count on getting jobs with good benefits. In particular, these days workers with a college degree but no further degrees are less likely to get workplace health coverage than workers with only a high school degree were in 1979.

So who is getting the big gains? A very small, wealthy minority...Who’s in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they’re corporate executives. Recent research shows that around 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent either are executives in nonfinancial companies or make their money in finance, i.e., Wall Street broadly defined. Add in lawyers and people in real estate, and we’re talking about more than 70 percent of the lucky one-thousandth....

[Demeter]

32. Rich People's Revolutions Are Barely Noticed, but a Poor Revolt Is Hard to Miss

http://www.truth-out.org/video-rich-peoples-revolutions-are-barely-noticed-poor-revolt-hard-miss/1320433216

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYh6Xdbz36A&feature=player_embedded

[Demeter]

33. Thom Hartmann: Occupy Wall Street Is Bringing Down the Big Banks, and More

http://www.truth-out.org/news-thom-hartmann-occupy-wall-street-bringing-down-big-banks-and-more/1320423202

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbyskwUBIzg&feature=player_embedded

[Demeter]

35. 650,000 Americans Joined Credit Unions Last Month - More Than in All of 2010 Combined

http://www.truth-out.org/650000-americans-joined-credit-unions-last-month-more-all-2010-combined/1320412458

One of the tactics the 99 Percenters are using to take back the country from the 1 percent is to move their money from big banks to credit unions, community banks, and other smaller financial unions that aren’t gambling with our nation’s future.

Now, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that a whopping 650,000 Americans have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 — the date that Bank of America announced it would start charging a $5 monthly debit fee, a move it backed down on this week.

To put that in perspective, there were only 600,000 new members for credit unions in all of 2010. “These results indicate that consumers are clearly making a smarter choice by moving to credit unions where, on average, they will save about $70 a year in fewer or no fees, lower rates on loans and higher return on savings,” said CUNA President Bill Cheney.

This Saturday, 99 Percenters are calling on Americans to move their money from big banks to credit unions and community banks on what is being called “Bank Transfer Day.” If you want to stand with the 99 Percent and take part in this action, use the Move Your Money project’s community bank and credit union finder tool to find out how. (HT: @blogdiva)

[Demeter]

52. Volunteer Attorneys Steer Occupy Protesters Through the Legal System

http://www.truth-out.org/volunteer-attorneys-steer-occupy-protesters-through-legal-system/1320066447

THERE'S A LOT OF NEWLY-GRADUATED LAWYERS THAT ARE UNEMPLOYED...JUST SAYING

...Growing numbers of protesters are being arrested for trespassing, failure to disperse and disobeying a lawful order, as city after city confronts the question of whether individual rights to free speech and assembly include the right to camp out on public property.

The resulting legal skirmishes have spurred the largest mobilization of pro bono protest attorneys since the anti-war movement of the 1960s and '70s.

"It's probably bigger than the anti-war movement, because there are so many simultaneous demonstrations. I've never seen anything like it," said Carol Sobel, co-chair of the Mass Defense Committee of the National Lawyers Guild...

[Demeter]

34. Romney’s Estate Tax Cut Would Save the Koch Brothers Up to $8.7 Billion Each

http://www.truth-out.org/romneys-estate-tax-cut-would-save-koch-brothers-87-billion-each/1320428722

Tomorrow, 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is slated to give a “major spending policy speech” at Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit. Both the conference and AFP itself are funded by money from the billionaire Koch brothers.

Romney has, of late, been trying to claim the economic plan he put forth is meant to aid the middle-class, not those in the Koch brothers’ tax bracket. “I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class. I’m not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine,” Romney said at a GOP debate last month. Yesterday, he even tried to claim “I’m proposing no tax cuts for the rich.”

Leaving aside that Romney intends to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he has proposed a huge giveaway to the very rich by suggesting the complete elimination of the estate tax. Only the very richest households in the country ever have to pay the estate tax, since, right now, an estate must be worth more than $5 million (or $10 million for a couple) to pay any estate tax at all.

Currently, more than half of the estate tax is paid by the richest 0.1 percent of households. And according to a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, the Koch brothers heirs’ would save a combined $17.4 billion in estate taxes thanks to Romney’s plan...

[Demeter]

48. ANOTHER MOVIE QUOTE

MOTHER OF THE BRIDE Maria Portokalos: Nicko! Don't play with the food! When I was your age, we didn't have food!

[Demeter]

84. CONTINUING THE THEME

Aunt Voula: What do you mean he don't eat no meat? (GROOM'S PARENTS)



Aunt Voula: Oh, that's okay. I make lamb.

...................................................................

Toula Portokalos: Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone... until the day we die.

[Demeter]

37. Freddie Mac seeks further $6bn from taxpayers

US mortgage financier’s bail-out total mounts to $72.2bn following a $4.4bn third-quarter loss, its worst quarterly performance in more than a year

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/NA70KK/97YDVV/XBAN6/EXKHDM/16ZMU3/YT/t?a1=2011&a2=11&a3=4

[Demeter]

38. Barclays chief rediscovers remorse

Bob Diamond in speech says banks needed to learn the lessons of past failures to ‘become better citizens’

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/NA70KK/97YDVV/XBAN6/EXKHDM/16ZMUX/YT/t?a1=2011&a2=11&a3=4

[Tansy_Gold]

42. He'll get over it by Monday. n/t

[bread_and_roses]

90. LOL, no doubt!

Got in a R but this weekend is the Breeders Cup - a high holy holiday for TB lovers - and the last before the long dark until the first Saturday in May. I won't be around much.

(All the reasons I do NOT love TB racing:
1. It's a rich wo/man's sport ("The Sport of Kings" - despite the hoopla made over the occasional small-time owner or trainer who makes it to the big shows)
2. It's cruel to horses and humans - two realities fiercely denied by most fans, but indisputable in the facts: drugs (horse and human), breakdowns, the life of unnatural confinement of horses at the track.
3. It is market rather than sustainably based: too many horses are bred, neither breeders nor owners take ultimate responsibility for their fate, too many (even still) go to slaughter or otherwise unhappy after-the-track fates)

So no - I do not love "the sport of kings" - but I do love thoroughbreds - in full flight among the most breathtaking of all the goddess's creatures - and on these high holy days there is a constant parade of the most beautiful of the beautiful, and I cannot resist watching them.

[Demeter]

92. Have fun!

I'm going to be celebrating a quiet, normal, only 16 hrs. of work weekend...

[Demeter]

39. BNP Paribas pays for eurozone exposure

France’s biggest bank takes €2.2bn hit on Greek debt, and offloads €11bn of sovereign bonds

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/NA70KK/97YDVV/XBAN6/EXKHDM/R3B8EX/YT/t?a1=2011&a2=11&a3=4

[Demeter]

40. US retail sales fall short of expectations

US retail sales rise 3.8 per cent in October but miss forecasts as retailers prepare for a holiday shopping season amid volatile consumer sentiment

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/NA70KK/97YDVV/XBAN6/EXKHDM/TU8O9X/YT/t?a1=2011&a2=11&a3=4

[Demeter]

45. Bill Moyers: "Our Politicians Are Money Launderers in the Trafficking of Power and Policy"

AND THEY DON'T EVEN GET THE STAINS OUT!

http://www.truth-out.org/how-did-happen/1320278111

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOIQ5-W1Epw&feature=player_embedded

[Demeter]

50. US Planning Troop Buildup in Gulf After Exit From Iraq

http://www.truth-out.org/us-planning-troop-buildup-gulf-after-exit-iraq/1319983484

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

The plans, under discussion for months, gained new urgency after President Obama’s announcement this month that the last American soldiers would be brought home from Iraq by the end of December. Ending the eight-year war was a central pledge of his presidential campaign, but American military officers and diplomats, as well as officials of several countries in the region, worry that the withdrawal could leave instability or worse in its wake.

After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative.

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region....BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

[Demeter]

51. Paulson's Plaintive Plea by: Jim Hightower

http://www.truth-out.org/paulsons-plaintive-plea/1320067092

Who's the most befuddled Wall Streeter of all? The richest guy on the Street. In assessing the spreading public protest against the rampaging greed of today's financial elite, John Paulson turns out to be as confused as a goat on Astroturf. Oh, he gets that the people's anger is directed at hedge fund profiteers like him, but he claims they are simply confused on the virtue of accumulated wealth. Although he raked in nearly $5 billion in personal pay last year (the largest single haul in Wall Street history) from rigged Wall Street casino games, he asserts that the amassing of wealth itself serves the public good.

It's unfair, Paulson scolds, that protesters demonstrated in front of his 28,000-square-foot, $15-million mansion on New York's Upper East Side, targeting him as an example of plutocratic excess. Taxes from billionaires like him, he says, are "providing huge benefits to everyone in our city." Besides, he points out that he's not merely a billionaire, but also a "job creator," as Republican leaders prefer to call corporate chieftains these days. Paulson brags that his hedge fund "has created over 100 high-paying jobs in New York City since its formation." Wow — 100 jobs in a city of over 8 million people.

Thanks, John. Our economy wouldn't be the same without you.

When it comes down to it, all that Paulson's clique really wants is a little love, a small show of gratitude for all that the richest 1 percent is doing for us 99 percent of Americans by making themselves ever-richer. In a plaintive press release, he recently wrote that, "Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them."

Isn't it sad to hear John cry? But, then, he does have $15 billion in net worth to dry those tears.

[Hotler]

104. FUCKER! n/t

[Demeter]

53. Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating--MATT TAIBBI

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025

GOOD COLOR REPORTING ON OSW

[Demeter]

54. It's Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style William Greider

ANOTHER MUST READ

http://www.thenation.com/article/164216/its-time-debt-forgiveness-american-style?page=full

[Demeter]

55. Could There Be a More Reprehensible and Ignorant GOP Candidate Than George W. Bush? Yes, Several.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13110

...Watching the current crop of presidential hopefuls is as dispiriting an exercise as any yet imagined. And the possibility that one of them might actually become president is too daunting to imagine.

Some of them are too intellectually dim to be taken seriously. Others have agendas that defy the boundaries of reasonable discourse. Between the right-wing rhetoric and the economic schemes being promulgated by the Republican zealot class voters have precious little to hang on to that is enlightened and holds any hope for the future. And beware when Rick Santorum says "let me tell you a little story." His rendition of what occurred after the birth of his son was a tear-jerker of the first order. I understand he was making a point that his severely damaged infant who died soon after birth was a real person, not just a bunch of cells to be discarded if he failed to grow and prosper. But I don't think I'll ever get past the picture I have in my head of the Santorums gathering up that infant and taking it home to show their little brother to his five children.

As for the others, not one of them seems to have a seriously developed plan to move the country forward in terms of the economy or foreign policy. It is amazing how familiar the 'solutions' they support are. What are their supporters thinking when 9-9-9 is embraced by so many of them or when Medicare is seriously discussed as a voucher program? And when House Leader Paul Ryan accuses Democrats of class warfare are there still folks naïve enough to believe his attacks when Republicans, deep in the blame game, try to accomplish their agenda with such transparent tactics?

One can only hope the electorate has gotten a little smarter this time around and will reject the gang of lack-luster Republican candidates who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric.

[Demeter]

68. Tell President Obama: Don't sell us out to Wall Street

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/obama_ws/index.html?rc=paste2&r_by=29865-1331949-VFgJz5x&rd=1

Americans are paying a heavy price for Wall Street greed. Millions are out of work, millions face foreclosure, and millions more are feeling the pain in some other way.

But not one of the Wall Street crooks who drove our economy off a cliff has gone to jail. And without aggressive investigation and prosecution of misconduct, none of them will.

Yet even as thousands are in the streets demanding Wall Street accountability, high-ranking officials in the Obama administration are actively pushing state Attorneys General to cut a terrible deal in the next few weeks with mortgage firms that lets these giant institutions off the hook for what appears to be widespread mortgage and foreclosure fraud.

President Obama needs to step in and put a stop to this.

Tell President Obama: Don't sell us out to Wall Street.

The notorious robo-signing scandal is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wrongdoing by the mortgage industry.

Through congressional hearings, court cases and investigative reporting, we know of numerous stories of big financial firms engaging in shady mortgage practices, many of which seem on their face to be against the law.

But the Obama administration has been pushing the Attorneys General to reach a settlement deal before these issues have been investigated in any meaningful way.

In exchange for what amounts to a slap on the wrist, the banks will get broad immunity from future prosecution.

Although the specific may change as negotiations are ongoing, the most recent reporting on the deal under consideration comes from Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times, who wrote on Saturday:
Cutting to the chase: if you thought this was the deal that would hold banks accountable for filing phony documents in courts, foreclosing without showing they had the legal right to do so and generally running roughshod over anyone who opposed them, you are likely to be disappointed.1

Tell President Obama: Don't sell us out to Wall Street.

The pressure on the state Attorneys General is coming from HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who is a quintessential Wall Street insider.2

Secretary Geithner, who used to be the President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, has a long history of enabling Wall Street misconduct.

So it's not surprising that he would be pushing for a backroom deal that could short-circuit future attempts to investigate the banks, punish people for their wrongdoings, and force banks to change their practices to help borrowers and homeowners.

What is a little surprising is President Obama allowing this to happen after his political advisors have said that he plans on running against Wall Street as part of his reelection campaign.3

In other words, President Obama will tell us he's for Wall Street accountability even as he's allowing his subordinates to sell us out to Wall Street.

President Obama can't have it both ways.

Talk is cheap. If President Obama is sincere about wanting to hold the banks accountable, he'll ensure his administration does nothing less that support investigating, prosecuting and punishing unscrupulous banks to the full extent of the law.

Tell President Obama: Don't sell us out to Wall Street.

1. "A Deal That Wouldn't Hurt," Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times, Oct. 29, 2011.
2. "The Worst Deal They Could Cut," Mike Lux, Huffington Post, Oct. 31, 2011.
3. Ibid.

PETITION AT LINK:

"Don't sell us out to Wall Street. Stop pushing the state Attorneys General to agree to a settlement that gives banks immunity for mortgage and foreclosure fraud that hasn't yet been investigated. Wall Street banks must be investigated, indicted and prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

[Tansy_Gold]

138. Too late; he already did

Back in November 2008. You know, when he appointed Rubin and Summers and Geithner. . . .

(I don't really need to post the rubber stamp again, do I?)



TG

[Demeter]

57. How the 99 Percent Really Lost Out - in Far Greater Ways Than the Occupy Protesters Imagine

http://www.truth-out.org/how-99-percent-really-lost-out-far-greater-ways-occupy-protesters-imagine/1319561990

"Property is theft," French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon famously declared in 1840 - a judgment clearly shared by many of those involved in the occupations in the name of the 99 percent around the country, and especially when applied to Wall Street bankers and traders. Elizabeth Warren also angrily points out that there "is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody." Meaning: if the rich don't pay their fair share of the taxes which educate their workers and provide roads, security and many other things, they are essentially stealing from everyone else.

But this is the least of it: Proudhon may have exaggerated when, for instance, we think of a small farmer working his own land with his own hands. But we now know that he was far closer to the truth than even he might have imagined when it comes to how the top 1 percent really got so rich, and why the 99 percent lost out. The biggest "theft" by the 1 percent has been of the primary source of wealth - knowledge - for its own benefit.

Knowledge? Yes, of course, and increasingly so. The fact is, most of what we call wealth is now known to be overwhelmingly the product of technical, scientific and other knowledge - and most of this innovation derives from socially inherited knowledge, at that. Which means that, except for trivial amounts, it was simply not created by the 1 percent who enjoy the lion's share of its benefits. Most of it was created, historically, by society - which is to say, minimally, the other 99 percent.

Take a simple example: In our own time, over many decades, the development of the steel plow and the tractor increased one man's capacity to farm, from a small plot (with a mule and wooden plow) to many hundred acres. What changed over the years to make this possible was a great deal of engineering, steelmaking, chemistry and other knowledge developed by society as a whole...

[Demeter]

59. Bill Bonner Comes Out of His Closet (SHOCKING!)

"Here at The Daily Reckoning, we’ve never had much truck with democracy. After all, why should a bunch of strangers get to tell us what to do? But there are some things it is good for. Deciding the colors of the national flag, for example. Or the tune of the national anthem. Or who will represent the country at the Miss Universe contest.

Otherwise, we don’t need no stinkin’ democracy... Better to let people decide for themselves how to organize their lives."


APPALLING IGNORANCE ABOUT POLITICS--GOOD THING HE HAS SOME BASIC COMPETENCE AND KNOWLEDGE IN ECONOMICS

[Demeter]

60. Everybody Hates Capitalism By Bill Bonner

General Theory of Zombieism:

1. All (or almost all) people want wealth, power and status.
2. They want to get it in the easiest way possible.
3. The easiest way to get wealth is to steal it, which is why all groups turn to the government, the only institution which gets to steal lawfully.
4. Over time, more and more groups are able to use the system for their own ends.

If they are poor, they implore the government to ‘tax the rich’ and give the money to the poor. If they are rich, they want the government to protect their wealth and status — with every means available to them. Democratic governments generally do both. They support the poor with loud attacks on the rich combined with whimpers of money (for the poor can generally be bought — vote for vote — much cheaper than the rich). As for the rich, their support is more subtle and underhanded. There are tax credits and loopholes for anyone who can afford them; sugar-laden contracts for the insiders and plenty of jobs for well-credentialized blowhards.

The rich complain about the poor. The poor complain about the rich. Both complain about the government. And everybody hates capitalism.

But over time, the giveaways, bribes, regulations, intercessions and meddling on the part of the government have a big effect on the economy. The more the government interferes with market signals and market-based capital allocation, the less able the economy is to produce real wealth. More and more resources are purloined by the insiders before the truck reaches its destination. Paperwork, lawyers, administration, regulation, taxes take a toll. So does misallocation of capital investment to huge, unproductive industries such as education, health, and defense. There is also a shift of wealth generally from those who earn it to those to whom it is redistributed…and from capital formation to consumption. And gradually the economy becomes paralyzed and parasitic…and nearly everyone gets poorer. And often, the state…and the mobs that support it…become desperate for more money. Then…the rich had better watch out!

We’ve already seen how zombieism overtook the education industry. Now lee’s look at another one — health.

The health care industry is demonstrably unproductive. We know that because we can compare the spending with the results. For our purposes we will measure ‘health’ by life expectancy. They are not exactly the same thing; but close enough.

Read more: Everybody Hates Capitalism http://dailyreckoning.com/everybody-hates-capitalism/#ixzz1cn9skAHM

[Demeter]

62. Zombie Wars By Bill Bonner

...spending on ‘defense’ is not subject to market pricing. So, you never know if you’re getting your moneys’ worth. As time goes by, spending on ‘defense’ becomes spending for a variety of purposes that have little to do with ensuring the safety of the nation or its people. One congressional district wants a military base to provide jobs. Another is hoping a local company gets the contract to build a new software system. Still another produces airplanes. One man wants a sinecure. Another wants to boss people around. Still another hopes for a contract without competitive bidding...The Pentagon is the world’s biggest spender. It uses more gasoline. More steel. More food. More of just about everything than any other organization on the planet. The military budget was $685 billion last year. But that was just the beginning of it. Hundreds of billions more were spent to support intervention efforts all over the globe — including foreign aid, trade missions, embassies, spooks, and other meddlers. Altogether, we have seen estimates as high as $1.2 trillion per year as the cost of maintaining the US imperial agenda.

It is easy to believe. The total cost of the Iraq war alone is now being estimated at as much as $3 trillion to $6 trillion. The higher number was proposed by Nobel Prize winning professor Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University. This makes it more expensive than WWII, which adjusted for inflation, cost $3.6 trillion. It also means that the Iraq war will have a price tag about even with the 2008-2011financial bailout, said to cost about $5 trillion.

What do you get for that kind of money?... Real wars have been replaced by zombie wars…started by zombie strategists…and pursued by zombie military men. Zombie wars are never won. Nobody really cares who wins anyway, for there is nothing really at stake. Zombie wars cost a fortune; they go on forever; they produce nothing. Zombie industries look out for themselves. They don’t care whether they do any good or not. The war in Iraq has now lasted twice as long as WWII…at a cost of $3,000 per second. Four thousand four hundred and eighty US troops have been killed and 32,000 wounded…many of whom will need care for the rest of their lives. The British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates that Iraqi casualties have totaled more than 640,000...

Read more: Zombie Wars http://dailyreckoning.com/zombie-wars/#ixzz1cnFNNjG1

THE TRICK NOT-TOO-SUBTLY EMPLOYED (AND DELETED BY MY CAREFUL EDITING) BY BILL BONNER IS TO ATTEMPT TO EQUATE THE WASTE AND FRAUD IN THE DEFENSE MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX WITH "EDUCATION" AND "HEALTHCARE".

IF BILL WANTS TO ROOT OUT THE WASTE AND FRAUD IN THOSE, HE IS GOING TO HAVE TO NAME NAMES...NOT JUST TRY TO TAR EVERYTHING WITH HIS 1% BRUSH.

[Demeter]

63. A Perversely Perfect War By Bill Bonner

In a perverse way, a zombie war is a perfect war. A lot of money changes hands. And relatively few people are killed, compared to a real war.

The British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates the total death toll from the Iraq war at nearly 700,000. When the war began, Pentagon experts estimated the cost of the war at about $60 billion. They underestimated by 8,000%. But if the war were to stop tomorrow…and if Joseph Stiglitz’s estimates of total cost were close to correct…each Iraqi killed (let’s hallucinate that he was an ‘enemy combatant’) would cost about $8 million.

You have to wonder why America would want to kill even a single Iraqi, let alone at a cost of $8 million each. WWII killed far more people — 50 million. Total spending on the war, by all the combatants, was probably around $10 trillion (our estimate). This puts the cost per corpse at only $200,000. WWII was far more efficient.

But WWII was a real war, not a zombie war. The real goal of a zombie war is neither to kill people…nor even to win. It is to transfer wealth from the real economy to the zombie industry, in this case, defense.

Read more: A Perversely Perfect War http://dailyreckoning.com/a-perversely-perfect-war/#ixzz1cnHKYxab


BILL BLATHERS ON, MANAGING TO TOTALLY IGNORE ALL ASPECTS OF EMPIRE....I'VE INCLUDED HIM FOR HUMOR, AND/OR TO GET THE BLOOD PUMPING ON CHILLY SATURDAY MORNING...

[Pale Blue Dot]

61. Total collapse on Monday: CME Goes To Margin DefCon 1: Makes Maintenance Margin Equal To Initial

For Everything!?

The most important news announcement of the day was not anything to came out of Cannes (as nothing did), nor from Greece (the merry go round farce there continues unabated). No, it was a brief paragraph distributed by the CME long after everyone had gone home, and was already on their 3rd drink. It is critical, because not only is this announcement a direct consequence of what happened with MF Global several days ago, but because also it confirms one of our biggest concerns: systemic liquidity is non-existanet. We confirmed interbank liquidity in Europe was at an all time low earlier today, and can only assume the same is true for US banks. But what is very disturbing is that this is just as true at the exchange level, where it appears the aftermath of the MF collapse is just now being felt. What exactly was the announcement. Unless we are completely reading it incorrectly, it is nothing short of a margin call for tens if not hundreds of billions worth of product. Because as of close of business on November 4, today, the CME just made the maintenance margin, traditionally about 26% lower than the initial margin for specs, equal. For everything. Which means that by close of business Monday, millions of options and futures holders will be forced to deposit billions in additional capital to the CME just so they are not found to be margin deficient, and thus receive a margin call. Naturally, since it is very unlikely that this incremental amount of liquidity can be easily procured in one business day, we anticipate the issuance of hundreds of thousands of margin calls Monday, followed by forced liquidations of margin accounts across America... and the world. Just like when Lehman blew up, it took 5 days for Money Markets to break. Is this unprecedented elimination in the distinction between initial and maintenance margin the post-MF equivalent of the first domino to fall this time around?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/cme-goes-margin-defcon-1-makes-maintenance-margin-equal-initial-everything

I urge you to check out the link and the comments and explain why we shouldn't all panic.

[Demeter]

67. Why Panic? There's Nothing We Can Do To Stop It

and the crash is long overdue. We have (I should hope) been getting ready for it these past 3 years, at least...surely advocating preparedness to all that view our threads.

The sooner the crash, the sooner the recovery and the quicker the criminals are driven out into prison or poverty.

And the 99% will coalesce much faster under crash conditions, transforming government into a more perfect union against any future 1% Elite.

It's like the first snow--a great relief of all the anticipation, the beauty of the shimmering flakes, the progression of the seasons and the restoration of the earth. Just so long as the woodpile is high, the larder is full, and the guest rooms available for the stranded, we will be fine.

[bread_and_roses]

98. Personally, I can't wait ...maybe next week's theme will be Götterdämmerung

... at least, if I understand the post (I'm not going to go read the link, which I no doubt WON'T understand...)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/G%C3%B6tterd%C3%A4mmerung

Noun Götterdämmerung (uncountable)

1.(Germanic mythology) The myth of the destruction of the gods in a final battle with the forces of evil; the apocalypse.
2.Any cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution

[Demeter]

100. Wagner is mighty weighty

I'll have to think about that...besides, it should REALLY be the End for "the End", if you know what I mean....

[bread_and_roses]

103. oh dear - I didn't mean Wagner ...Please - no Wagner

... I am not attuned to opera, though I can enjoy the occasional aria or chorus, particularly in the "lighter" operas of Mozart or Rossini. I absolutely can't abide "heavy" opera, including Wagner.

so PLEASE - no Wagner! "Gotterdammerung" came to mind as myth, not music - no doubt because when I think of Greece, it is the myths that come first to mind, so that's the path my mind was on

[Demeter]

111. Okay, no Wagner

Sheesh. No Gilbert and Sullivan, no Wagner, what next?

[DemReadingDU]

114. CME Issues Clarification On Margins: To Usher More Risk, Less Liquidity In MF Aftermath

11/5/11 CME Issues Clarification On Margins: To Usher More Risk, Less Liquidity In MF Aftermath

Yesterday, in what is the worst-phrased and most misleading press release to ever come out of the CME, the exchange issued a notice that going forward all Initial margin would be equal to Maintenance margin. Our gut interpretation was that "Unless we are completely reading it incorrectly, it is nothing short of a margin call for tens if not hundreds of billions worth of product." Judging by the broad response, our initial reaction is what a prudent, logical human being would assume: after all, it is precisely the undercollateralization of customer accounts, and general underfunding at MF Global that is what brought that particular company down. Well, we wrong wrong. The CME, it appears has taken a page right out of the European playbook, and less than a week after an exchange-cum-Primary Dealer collapsed due to excessive risk taking, the CME has followed up its vague press release from yesterday by inviting even more risk in lowering the initial margin. Why is this a cause for even greater concern? As the CME itself says, "Initial margins are set to provide an additional buffer against future losses in the account" - so going forward that buffer has been reduced by about 30%. But what is the reasoning provided by CME: "The intent and effect of these changes is to decrease the size of any margin calls resulting from the bulk transfer of MF Global customers to new clearing members, not to increase them." So basically the CME is implicitly putting all of its existing and current clients and customers at further risk by onboarding the accounts of those clients who, like lemmings, held on to their MF Global accounts until after it was too late. Because while the lower Initial margin may apply to MF accounts, it will also apply to any Tom, Dick and Harry beginning Monday, who will suddenly see a 30% reduced gating threshold to put on a position. Any position, no matter how risky.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/cme-issues-clarification-margins-usher-more-risk-less-liquidity-mf-aftermath

I'm not sure if this is supposed to make us feel less panicky or more panicky
:eyes:

[Demeter]

64. Dinosaurs, Dodos and AAA Governments By Addison Wiggin

The history of sovereign finance is a history of broken promises. Governments are very good at stiffing their creditors.

During the boom phase of a lending cycle, creditors tend to forget this inconvenient truth. They forget that government borrowers are nothing like corporate borrowers. They forget that government revenues derive from confiscation, rather than production.

As a result, during the boom phase, creditors demand much lower interest rates from government borrowers than they do from similarly rated corporate borrowers.

During the bust phase, however, creditors start to remember how dangerous government borrowers can be. They start to remember that when times are tough, governments have a tough time confiscating enough national wealth to repay their bills.

Read more: Dinosaurs, Dodos and AAA Governments http://dailyreckoning.com/dinosaurs-dodos-and-aaa-governments/#ixzz1cnIY4ga1

[Demeter]

65. Average Budget For warisacrime.org

WARISACRIME.ORG asked its visitors to submit their budget proposals for the US government, then averaged the results:


http://warisacrime.org/viewbudgetaverage FOR PIE CHART

[Demeter]

66. The Era of Small and Many Reversing the trend of generations by Bill McKibben

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6491


...Or another way to say it: can you figure out which way history wants to head (since no politician can really fight the current) and suggest how we might surf that wave?

Here’s my answer: we’re moving, if we’re lucky, from the world of few and big to the world of small and many. We’ll either head there purposefully or we’ll be dragged kicking, but we’ve reached one of those moments when tides reverse.

Take agriculture. For 150 years the number of farms in America has inexorably declined. In my state—the most rural in the nation—the number of dairies fell from 11,000 at the end of World War II to 998 this summer. And of course the farms that remained grew ever larger—factory farms, we called them, growing commodity food. Here in Vermont most of the remaining dairies are big, but not big enough to compete with the behemoths in California or Arizona; they operate so close to the margin that they can’t afford to hire local workers and instead import illegal migrants from Mexico.

But last year the USDA reported that the number of farms in America had actually increased for the first time in a century and a half. The most defining American demographic trend—the shift that had taken us from a nation of 50 percent farmers to less than 1 percent—had bottomed out and reversed. Farms are on the increase—small farms, mostly growing food for their neighbors. They’re not yet a threat to the profits of the Cargills and the ADMs, but you can see the emerging structure of a new agriculture composed of CSAs and farmers’ markets, with fewer middlemen. Which is all for the good. Such farming uses less energy and produces better food; it’s easier on the land; it offers rural communities a way out of terminal decline. You could even imagine a farmscape that stands some chance of dealing with the flood, drought, and heat that will be our destiny in the globally warmed century to come. Instead of the too-big-to-fail agribusiness model, this will be a nimbler, more diversified, sturdier agriculture.

And what works on the farm works elsewhere too. Think about our energy future—the phrase that engineers like to use now is “distributed generation.” Since our old fuels were dense in BTUs and concentrated in a few locations, it made sense to site a few giant generating stations where coal or uranium could easily be brought and burned. But the logic of sun and wind is exactly the opposite: millions of rooftops and ridgelines producing power. You can do it in cities as easily as in the country—new satellite and airplane mapping of New York City’s five boroughs showed that the city’s rooftops could provide half its electricity. If you can do that in New York, imagine Shaker Heights, not to mention Phoenix. And once you’ve done it, you’ve got something practical and local: an interconnected grid where everyone brings something and takes something away. A farmers’ market in electrons.

Many of us get a preview of life in the age of small and many when we sit down at our computers each day. Fifteen years ago we still depended on a handful of TV networks and newspaper conglomerates to define our world for us; now we have a farmers’ market in ideas. We all add to the flow with each Facebook post, and we can find almost infinite sources of information. It’s reshaping the way we see the world—not, of course, without some trauma (from the hours wasted answering e-mail to the death of too much good, old-school journalism). All these transitions will be traumatic to one extent or another, since they are so very big. We’re reversing the trend of generations...

AND THAT'S BECAUSE THE BACKS OF THE OLIGARCHS MUST BE BROKEN, AND THE PARASITES REMOVED FROM THE BODY POLITIC!

[Demeter]

69. As Regulators Pressed Changes, Corzine Pushed Back, and Won

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/as-regulators-pressed-changes-corzine-pushed-back-and-won/?ref=business

Months before MF Global teetered on the brink, federal regulators were seeking to rein in the types of risky trades that contributed to the firm’s collapse. But they faced opposition from an influential opponent: Jon S. Corzine, the head of the then little-known brokerage firm.

As a former United States senator and a former governor of New Jersey, as well as the leader of Goldman Sachs in the 1990s, Mr. Corzine carried significant weight in the worlds of Washington and Wall Street. While other financial firms employed teams of lobbyists to fight the new regulation, MF Global’s chief executive in meetings over the last year personally pressed regulators to halt their plans.

The agency proposing the rule, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, relented. Wall Street, which has been working to curb many financial regulations, won another battle.

Yet with MF Global in bankruptcy and regulators scrambling to find $630 million in missing customer funds, Mr. Corzine’s effort may come back to haunt him...The proposed rule would have restricted a complicated transaction that allowed MF Global in essence to borrow money from its own customers. Brokerage firms are allowed to use customers’ money to earn interest, not unlike banks, but this rule would have outlawed using customer funds for a loan to the firm itself...

WELL, THAT'S A CONVICTION, IF EVER I SAW ONE...

[Demeter]

73. We'll pick it up here tomorrow

There's still some current events, Greek and not, and then the entire Greek mythology to sample...as we wait for the first snowfall of the season...political, economic, or climate.

[Demeter]

74. Will the US get hurt by the Eurozone?

http://www.kentwillard.com/5-ducats/2011/11/will-the-us-get-hurt-by-the-eurozone.html

...US economic news is generally good, so maybe European problems won't hurt America. Several reasons why I am dubious of this theory:

1. The S&P 500 is full of multinationals that have significant sales revenue from Europe - I'm sure someone has the numbers.
   
   
2. Falling Euro bond prices have taken out MF Global, scorched Jefferies, and last month even threatened Morgan Stanley. Everyone says they are hedged, which begs the old quote, "The only perfect hedge is in an English garden." The question isn't so much if the hedges are good, but if investors believe the hedges are still good once a counterparty teeters. We know Bernanke will bailout a US counterparty, but what would fractured Europe do?
   
   
3. Over the past 8 years, US equity prices have generally tracked with the strength of the Euro. When the Euro falls relative to the US dollar, US stock prices fall too. A lot of this is a flight to the safety of a bond issuer that prints its own money. A bit of it may be that a stronger dollar is inherently deflationary - if the dollar is worth more, then everything in dollar terms is worth less.

Euro & US Equities

When the stock market doesn't make sense to me, I look to the bond market for confirmation. The bond market is usually better at predicting the future rather than chasing fads and rumors. CDS spreads and bond yields have only gotten worse in the peripheral nations of late. And Treasury yields have risen little compared to the equity rally. So I'm waiting till we're on the otherside of the Euro crisis until I am optimistic.

[Demeter]

75. Brilliant Moves by Papandreou; EMU Mentions Eurozone Exit Possibility First Time Ever; Who the Hell

Brilliant Moves by Papandreou; EMU Mentions Eurozone Exit Possibility First Time Ever; Who the Hell is Merkozy to Dictate Terms of a Greek Referendum?

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/11/brilliant-moves-by-papandreou-emu.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29


As the days progress, the strategy of George Papandreou has become increasingly clear. He does not like the terms forced on him by Eurozone bureaucrats especially French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Not only is he fed up with Eurocrats, he is fed up with Greek protests as well as pressure from political opposition.

Who the Hell is "Merkozy" to Dictate Terms of a Greek Referendum?

The reaction to Papandreou's referendum proposal was swift and severe, not only in the markets, but also at the emergency meeting Cannes between Merkel, Sarkozy, and Papandreou. Sarkozy and Merkel proclaimed the Referendum was about an exit from the Eurozone. Really? I ask again, Really?...That said, I appreciate the fact that Merkozy now accept the simple fact that an exit from the Eurozone is possible. This is a major step in the right direction, even if it constitutes effective blackmail on Greece...The IMF upped the ante saying Greece will not get the next tranche of money until after the referendum. Hmmm. It seems the IMF and EMU should have thought about that before the last release of funds. By the way, this helps explain the timing of Papandreou's announcement. Papandreou cleverly waited until he had the funds and anti-Papandreou sentiment was extreme before announcing his referendum ploy. What transpired immediately following his announcement was a series of on-off-on referendum announcements culminating with Papandreou convincing his cabinet to go along with the idea (please see Greek Referendum Off or On? Who is in Control? Anyone?) That was an incredibly gutsy but also exceptionally well-timed move by Papandreou...


Explanation of My Position

Please do not read any more into this than exists. The facts of the matter are French, German, and other European banks made stupid loans to Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, etc. Banks that make stupid lending decisions (and not taxpayers) should pay the price for those actions.

Greece desperately needs reforms, particularly in the public union area. I support those reforms. However, I do not support the bailing out of banks. Unfortunately, all this alleged "help" to Greece is nothing more than an obvious attempt to bail out banks at the expense of Greece and European taxpayers in general.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

[Demeter]

76. Greece will be cut adrift if bail-out is refused, says EU

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8866296/Greece-will-be-cut-adrift-if-bail-out-is-refused-says-EU.html

Greece last night faced the threat of bankruptcy within weeks after the EU said it would not provide any more funding to the beleaguered country unless it agreed to support the euro bail-out...

[Demeter]

77. EU Leaders Threaten Greece With Expulsion From the Eurozone

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/eu-leaders-threaten-greece-with-expulsion-from-the-eurozone.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

If you had any doubts about the intent of the Eurobailouts, the latest news should settle them. The game plan was to severely limit Greek sovereignity and assert the primacy of creditor rights, even if they came at the expense of democracy. Greece, as we described in a post earlier today, threatened to blow up the bailout by having a referendum. That measure, even if it took place before year end, would create massive uncertainty and wreak havoc with other efforts (for instance, getting China to contribute cash to the levered EFSF, the bailout funding vehicle. As we’ve detailed in earlier posts, it is unworkable in the absence either of ECB backing or substantial outside funding).

The Eurocrats have decided to try to push Greece into line, threatening expulsion from the Euro (note, not the EU) if Greece does not back down. From a practical matter, if the Greeks were to turn down the bailout package, it would lead to a banking crisis, making a Eurozone exit a not that much more traumatic incremental move with considerable upside. And under the Maastrict treaty, Greece cannot unilaterally exit (although as various commentors have pointed out, Nato is not going to send in tanks if the Greeks were to do so).

But this may be an appeal to the Greek public, or more likely, an effort to break Greek prime minister’s Papandreou’s thin coalition on the eve of a vote of no confidence. Recent polls show 66% of the Greek public favors remaining in the Euro (some NC readers questioned those polls, and I’d love to see how the questions were posed). Greece has already made some concessions, moving up the referendum date to December 4 or 5 when it had been targeted for January. Note that this is before the time when Greece is expected to run out of cash, mid-December, and the officialdom (per the Wall Street Journal) has not disbursed the quarterly aid payment of €8 billion that Greece needs to remain solvent beyond that date.

But this may be too late. The expectations of the Greek public may have been raised by the referendum announcement, and it may be impossible to put that genie back into the bottle. If civil unrest rises, the government will be forced to come to heel, EU pressure notwithstanding.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Europe’s leaders, making plain that they’ve reached the end of their patience with Greece, demanded that the beleaguered nation declare whether it wanted to remain in the euro currency union—or risk going it alone in a dramatic secession.

“Does Greece want to remain part of the euro zone or not,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. “That is the question the Greek people must now answer.”

The extraordinary rupture with the rest of Europe—whose leaders have insisted for months that an exit from the currency union is simply inconceivable—follows Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s stunning decision Monday to call a referendum on his country’s bailout.

Update Midnight: The Wall Street Journal account, which seemed to be first out of the box, indicated that the €8 billion payment was being withheld, assuring a Greek default as of mid December. The Financial Times put that issue front and center in its account:

European leaders suspended an overdue tranche of €8bn in international aid to Athens and demanded Greece make a clear decision on whether it wanted to leave the eurozone at a dramatic meeting on the sovereign debt crisis on Wednesday night.

[Demeter]

78. Michael Hudson on the Showdown in Greece

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/michael-hudson-on-the-showdown-in-greece.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Reader Sufferin’ Succotash asked whether Papandreou would turn out to be Pericles or Petain. We now have our answer. His finance minister, Evengelos Venizelos, went to the G20 in Cannes (going directly after being discharged from the hospital, meaning he almost certainly did not inform and therefore intended to betray Papandreou) and issued a statement arguing that the need to get the next cash dole from the bailout program and maintain “international credibility” trumped all other considerations. Papandreou backed down and canceled the referendum.

Even though everyone who is not part of the problem recognizes that an eventual Greek default (or much deeper debt restructuring) is inevitable, it seems the Greek population must be ground into the dust first to discourage any rebellion against the new order of rule by creditors. The wild card is whether the level of civil disobedience rises to the point where the government has to change course. We’ve already read of serious signs of breakdown: widespread failures to collect trash, frequent power interruption, such reduced schedules for public transportation that it becomes difficult for those who still have jobs to get to work.

Although this segment was taped before the Papandreou volte face, this discussion on Democracy Now with Michael Hudson illuminates some of the underlying dynamics behind this showdown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7t1WmqOb6u4

[Demeter]

79. Swimming Naked in China A MUST READ FOR CHINA WATCHERS

http://the-diplomat.com/2011/11/03/swimming-naked-in-china/

With the Chinese government tightening credit, the massive leakage from the formal banking sector into the ‘shadow system’ ultimately risks sinking the country’s financial system...For quite some time, analysts of China have been puzzled by a strange phenomenon: the country’s public and financial institutions are decidedly subpar by any international standard, but its economic growth rate is anything but. This puzzle can only be explained by two conclusions: either China has been fudging its growth data, or Chinese institutions aren’t as bad as outsiders commonly think...There is, however, a third possibility. During the peak of the credit bubble in the United States, bankers on Wall Street had a popular saying: “When the tide is high, nobody knows you are swimming naked.” What this aphorism means is that apparent economic prosperity can cover up many dubious if not outright shady practices that eventually lead to financial calamities.... high economic growth has concealed many high-risk and illegal activities and practices that may have bolstered growth, but also sowed the seeds for financial mass destruction.

Of all the disquieting news from China these days, such as stubborn inflation, slowing growth, and social unrest, the sudden bankruptcy of a large number of private firms in Zhejiang, the most entrepreneurial province in all of China, is by far the most disturbing. Press reports suggest that most of the bankruptcies involved small and medium-sized private firms that couldn’t service their debt or had their credit lines withdrawn by China’s “shadow banking system.” This consists of state-controlled banks and illegal private financial intermediaries that funnel loans to credit-starved private firms...Of course, the bankruptcies themselves have led to a panicked reaction in Beijing because they not only made tens of thousands of workers jobless and ignited some protests, but because they also could cause financial contagion within China, leading to the “shadow banking system” to call in loans and triggering a cascade of new bankruptcies. So Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and senior officials hurried to Wenzhou, the epicenter of the emerging financial distress, to try to restore calm and confidence.

But the task of stanching off this incipient financial panic is daunting. In the short-term, this involves the formulation and execution of policies that would effectively bail out those who have been swimming naked in China’s high but turbulent economic tide. For years, China’s state-owned banks systematically restricted credit to China’s dynamic private sector. While Chinese private firms are the fastest-growing economic entities and creating most of the new jobs, the Chinese government channels the bulk of bank loans to state-owned companies. The data on bank loans show that, as of 2009, explicitly identified non-state firms accounted for only 2 percent of all outstanding loans. This discriminatory policy forces private firms to tap the “shadow banking system.” Such a system came into being because state-owned banks wanted to make more money with their low-cost (if not free) household deposits, because when state-owned banks lend to state-owned firms, they can charge only regulated (low) interest rates and repayment is not assured. Generally, such lending is politically safe (since no bank managers go to jail for making bad loans to state-owned enterprises) but economically unprofitable. On the other hand, lending money to private firms is politically unsafe (bank managers risk corruption charges should loans go sour) but economically lucrative (as they can charge high rates).

To manage the political risks of lending to private firms, Chinese state-owned banks created new investment options for their depositors, who are eager to invest their hard-earned savings at rates higher than government-controlled rates for deposits. Called “wealth management vehicles,” these new financial instruments effectively enabled state-owned banks to channel consumer deposits into loans targeting credit-starved private firms at rates that, when annualized, normally reach double digits. Effectively, the “shadow banking system” has been siphoning off credit from the state-owned banks. In the last few years, when Beijing opened the credit spigot to stimulate the economy following the global financial crisis, few noticed the effects of such leakage, which has grown enormously. Estimates by economists put the total amount of outstanding loans made by the “shadow banking system” at close to 20 percent of all outstanding bank loans...However, as in the case of a falling tide, Beijing has been tightening credit to fight inflation for a year now. In this process, state-owned banks have been forced to call in the loans made through the “shadow banking system,” thus hurting the debtors and triggering a spate of bankruptcies.

The proposed short-term solutions – making more loans available, restructuring the terms or rolling over maturing loans – will do no more than put a dent in a more serious systemic problem. As long as the Chinese state monopolizes the financial sector and discriminates against private firms, corrupt and high-risk behavior such as lending hundreds of billions of dollars through an unregulated informal banking system will continue....MORE

[xchrom]

106. i think there is going to be a china centered economic problem.

and i think it's a combination of the three things the author of the article cited.

[Demeter]

80. Banks Extract Fees On Unemployment Benefits

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/bank-fees-unemployment-benefits_n_1033700.html

Out of work and living on a $189-a-week unemployment check, Rob Linville needs to watch every penny. Lately, he has been watching too many pennies disappear into the coffers of the bank that administers his unemployment check via a prepaid debit card. The state of Oregon, where Linville lives, deposits his weekly benefits on a U.S. Bank prepaid debit card. The bank allows him to make four withdrawals per month free of charge. After that, he must pay $1.50 for each visit to the ATM and $3 to see a teller. Managing his basic expenses, including rent, bus fare and groceries, typically requires more than four withdrawals, he says. Unexpected needs -- Linville recently bought a sport coat for $20 to prepare for a job interview -- entail more. He's afraid to withdraw his full benefits in one shot, knowing that the bank could sock him with a $17.50 overdraft fee if he exceeds his balance. So he pulls out small amounts of cash as he needs it, incurring about $15 in fees in the last two months he says. "I'm so broke," Linville said, his voice expressing resignation that this is simply how the world works. "But I don't really have any other options."

Across the nation, people receiving a range of state-furnished benefits -- from unemployment insurance and food stamps to cash assistance for poor families -- are facing similar options and reaching the same conclusion. In 41 states major banks and financial firms have secured contracts to provide access to public benefits via prepaid debit cards. And banks are increasingly extracting hefty cuts of these funds through an assortment of small fees. U.S. Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other institutions hold contracts to distribute these benefits on prepaid debit cards. When Bank of America announced plans to charge regular banking customers a $5 monthly fee to use their debit card it created a wave of public criticism. But the lesser-known fees attached to prepaid debit cards are already extracting money from the most vulnerable Americans -- those unable to pay their bills and feed their families without public help -- in the midst of stubbornly high unemployment and soaring rates of poverty.

"The big banks have actually figured out a way to make unemployed workers a profit center, one that only grows as things get worse," said Angela Martin, executive director of Economic Fairness Oregon, a nonprofit advocacy group for low income and poor families...Six years ago, states distributed $55 billion in public benefits via prepaid debit cards, according to an estimate from Mercator Advisory Group, which monitors the consumer payment industry. By last year, that figure had ballooned to $133 billion. Mercator does not track how much of that money was handled by banks...There are some hints of how much money is flowing from America's poorest families to banks. In 2008, California's welfare families paid $8 million in surcharges to access their cash welfare benefits, according to a Western Center on Law and Poverty analysis, which advocates for the poor. Surcharges paid by welfare recipients will exceed $16 million this year, the Center projects. The revenue generated from providing access to public benefits on prepaid debit cards has become particularly important to banks this year, said Lauren Saunders, a managing attorney at the National Consumer Law Center in Washington, D.C. A 2010 federal law capped the swipe fees banks can collect from merchants when consumers use ordinary debit cards. But those caps do not apply to the prepaid debit cards used to withdraw unemployment benefits and other forms of cash assistance. In several states, the public benefits debit card business involves a largely captive audience that must exert itself to find an alternative means of securing its money. A half dozen states force the unemployed to receive their benefits on prepaid debit cards, according to a May study released by the National Consumer Law Center.

.........................................

Between July and September, U.S. Bancorp secured $357 million in revenue through the division that includes its prepaid cards, according to its most recent earnings statement. That was more than one-fourth of its total revenues. The bank refused to say how much of this revenue was comprised of fees from its handling of state unemployment benefits. The fees are the sole source of revenue the bank derives by handling unemployment benefits and court-ordered child support payments in Oregon. The state does not pay the bank for issuing debit cards or administering the payments. Oregon's treasurer will begin negotiating a new contract in November. A request for proposals from other banks has not been issued. For the state, the cards minimize the need to mail checks or manage transfers to myriad banks. Since 2007, Oregon has saved at least $11 million on printing, mailing and other costs associated with the unemployment program alone, said James Sinks, a spokesman for Oregon State Treasurer Ted Wheeler's office. State staff estimate that over the course of the contracts, about 40 percent of people in both programs have used ReliaCards, Sinks said. The remainder receive funds via direct deposit.

[Demeter]

81. Is GMAC, Now Ally, Just Dishonest or Criminally Incompetent? YVES SMITH

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/is-gmac-now-ally-just-dishonest-or-criminally-incompetent.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29



Per Housing Wire, Ally CEO Michael Carpenter made some pretty cheeky statements on an investor conference call today:

“If we think a settlement is not in the best interest of our shareholders, which is still the U.S. taxpayer, then we will not participate,” Carpenter said in a conference call with investors Wednesday. “The downside is long-term aggravation and legal fees. But if you think we have significant exposure from a financial implication, the answer is no.”…

Carpenter said Ally reviewed 25,000 foreclosure cases with potential evidence of forged documents and affidavits. The bank found each borrower reviewed had been delinquent on the loan at least one year, in some cases two, he said.

“We deeply regret the sloppy operational practices that led to this. But we have contractual obligations as a servicer to foreclose when we must,” Carpenter said.

He said the bank has corrected the mistakes and reiterated on the call that each servicer may have different exposures in their portfolios.

Notice the logic here. First, the assertion is that the law does not matter, all that matters is whether the servicer’s records say the borrower is current. But as we have discussed repeatedly, there is ample evidence of both error in servicer records and abusive and impermissible practices regarding servicer fees, such as junk fees, force placed insurance, double dipping (charing both the investor and the borrower the same fee), impermissibly (via contract and Federal law) applying borrower payments to fees first rather than principal and interest. The latter practice results in “pyramiding fees”, since charging fees first means a regular payment will be deemed short (or in many cases, will be placed in a suspense account and be treated as late), generating yet more fees. I had an attorney tell me that he had a client where a single disputed late fee led his client to declare bankruptcy to escape foreclosure (the fee and subsequent charges were proven to be unwarranted). And as readers know, the servicer is judge, jury, and too often, executioner. Any borrower who believes his servicer has made an error will find it well nigh impossible to pry the internal records out of his servicer, even with a lawyer’s assistance, and it then takes a forensic accountant to review and present them in court.

And notice Carpenter’s airy dismissal of near certain document forgeries and fabrication as mere “sloppiness”. I sat in on one foreclosure case where GMAC was the servicer. An allonge appeared magically at the 11th hour and included obvious forgeries (Photoshop shrunk to fit signatures and pixtilation on documents that by law had to have wet ink signatures). The GMAC representative also perjured himself, offering testimony with great confidence early on that he was forced to retreat from when presented with documentary evidence that contradicted his sworn statements.

I sincerely doubt these practices have stopped, since absent the invention of a time machine, it is impossible for a servicer to foreclose in the name of a trust legally, since the mortgages were not transferred to it in the manner necessary (and set forth in the governing document, the pooling & servicing agreement) for the trust to have ownership. Someone else in the securitization chain presumably does have the right to foreclose, but no one wants that to happen, since there is not kosher way to get the money from that party to the trust. In addition, no one wants to admit that mortgage backed securities might actually not be mortgage backed. Carpenter also mischaracterizes the settlement as being limited to robosigning. Various leaked indicate the release will be broader, and the Ally CEO seems remarkably unaware of what his potential exposure is. But Lisa Epstein, via e-mail, reminds us that GMAC received the first robosigning sanction by a Florida judge (in 2006), was the first to threaten a foreclosure attorney (Tom Cox) for exposing fraud, and broke the robosigning scandal open by halting REO sales due to title defects.

Personally, I think it would be great if Ally rejected the settlement and later got raked over the coals, say if a bank friendly attorney general is replaced by one more interested in upholding the law. But it is more likely that this is yet another bank-side negotiating gambit, and Ally either volunteered or was volunteered to see how much the banks could improve the terms by yet another display of pique. That strategy has worked swimmingly so far, so why not keep at it? I’d be delighted if it was the banks that derailed the settlement talks by overplaying their hand. The evidence piling up in courtrooms all over the US is too overwhelming for them to pretend they have clean hands. And that gridlock getting worse is what will finally force a resolution. Any real remedy of these problems is certain not to be to the banks’ liking.

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82. Bank CEOs Lying When They Say They’ve Stopped Robosiging

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/banks-lying-when-they-say-theyve-stopped-robosiging.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

...Robosigning, narrowly speaking, refers to the use of low paid staffers to execute documents used in court filings by the hundreds per day. This created a huge scandal when it broke because it was a flagrant violation of court procedures. Affidavits, for instance, are used in place of testimony and are required to be based on personal knowledge. A $12 an hour functionary churning out signatures clearly has not even read the paperwork, much the less has any knowledge of the various foreclosures he is pushing through the pipeline. Ally and other major servicers now piously claim that these systematic abuses of legal procedures that date back to the 1677 Statute of Frauds were mere “sloppiness” or “paperwork errors” and they’ve cleaned up their act. Should we believe them?

While services like #5 Ally may well have dispensed with factory-style signing procedures. there is evidence on the ground that says that the banks have not made meaningful changes. But there is even evidence that robosigning is still taking place, AFTER the banks were supposedly investigated by 11 Federal regulators (we’ve repeatedly expressed our skepticism about that efforts, and our doubts were confirmed by the GAO) and after the servicers entered into consent decrees which made this sort of thing impermissible.

In July, two separate investigations, one by Reuters, one by the Associated Press, found that past robosigners were still cranking out signatures. Reuters identified six robosigners at five different servicers. As we wrote:

So…the banks have perjured themselves, made commitment to regulators that they are brazenly violating. The Reuters investigation determined that at least 5 of the 14 servicers that signed consent decrees in April are not complying with their requirements: OneWest, Bank of America, HSBC, Bank USA, Wells Fargo and GMAC Mortgage. Note that three of them (Bank of America, Wells, and GMAC, now Ally) are among the five biggest servicers, so the impact is greater than the number of derelicts suggests. And one is the annoyingly pious Wells, which keeps maintaining, contrary to all evidence, that it is better than the other servicers. In addition, another six servicers that did not sign the consent orders were also found by the Reuters exam to have engaged in abusive practices.

The AP report found that servicers were continuing to generate documents signed by well-known robosigners, including the notorious Linda Greene. This seems to be asking to be caught out…

Remarkably, the head of the industry lobbying group admits this is happening

Now it’s possible that Ally has since reformed, but that seems highly unlikely. Remember, many of the major servicers halted foreclosures, either in many states or all over the US, and claim that they resumed only after investigating and remedying any problems. Thus Congressional investigations, regulators, investors, and the general public have been told, falsely in some, perhaps most cases, that this fraudulent behavior was a thing of the past...But it gets even better. The Nevada attorney general, Catherine Cortez Masto, was instumental in getting legislation passed that makes it a crime (a felony) to file improper paperwork with the courts, subject to 10 years in jail and fines of $10,000 per violation. Note that this legislation did not change the legal requirement for foreclosure; it simply criminalized failure to comply... What happened when the law became effective? Foreclosures stopped. In other words, no one who had been filing foreclosures was confident that their procedures complied with the law...MORE

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83. THE DAILY DILBERT

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85. Inside the New Occupy Wall Street Economy

http://www.alternet.org/story/152866/inside_the_new_occupy_wall_street_economy?akid=7775.227380.2ZLkmM&rd=1&t=27

For a movement that is a little over a month old, Occupy Wall Street runs a tight financial ship. The occupiers have chosen Amalgamated bank, which bills itself as “America’s Labor’s Bank” to house its cash, collected from a flood of donations over the past few weeks. “CPAs,” according to a member of the finance team, are giving guidance on state and federal reporting. And a team of entrepreneurs, former business owners and bookkeepers have joined the finance team, minding the till at Zuccotti. All of them must submit to background checks. The OWS finance group’s next challenge (in addition to streamlining processes) is to become fully transparent.

Occupy Wall Street’s finances have become a matter of discussion inside and out of the movement. There are expected challenges from the right, which has trotted out George Soros as go-to bogey man. But questions are arising from inside the movement as well. This was posted to an online forum (New York General Assembly forums are open to the public at www.nycga.net) from the group OccupyTV:

Hello this is OccupyTV. We have some questions for the finance team. Who is managing the 500K raised so far? Where are the receipts for spending? Where is (sic) the balance sheets? Why is this not posted online for ALL to see? Where is the transparency? Why is it not being distributed to other occupy locations that have not been able to raise money? We are not the only ones posing this question. Our viewers have been asking this for days now. If all this is not transparent, well then that is a huge issue and needs to be addressed immediately.

Members of the finance team are getting requests to do more and more media. I have visited the movement on several occasions and spent the day at Zuccotti on Saturday, hanging with the finance group. Holed up behind a decrepit card table at OWS command central, at least two members of the finance group must be on site at all times, in order to monitor the cash and one another. Group members joke about taking on code names, floating Billy Bailout or Daisy Deficit as options. In a milieu of Zuccotti groups that focus on arts and culture, direct action, the Occupy Wall Street Journal and media, finance is a less sexy job. But for a movement triggered by financial irresponsibility of Wall Street and economic inequality, this team may become one of the most important. They are keenly aware of this, and are planning to go public with financial information and expenditures.

Since the team is made up of volunteers, most with regular jobs, finding time to make information publicly available ends up taking a back seat to handling requests from the occupiers. In the hour I spent there on Saturday, representatives from no less than seven groups came by with varying requests, some requiring more conversation and scrutiny than others. Each working group –--approximately 20 were approved by the GA for funding -- is allowed up to $100 a day in expenditures: be it tents for the comfort team, supplies for the arts and culture group or any number of reasonable requests from each team to do its business. People requesting more than the allowed $100 per day must fill out a carbon requisition form requiring approval by the General Assembly. If you can't cough up receipts for your group's expenditures, you must return that share of the money. What money can and cannot be spent on is a matter of common sense. The drum group -- which according to many on the inside is becoming a nuisance -- showed up at one General Assembly asking for $8,000 for damages to their drums. This was soundly voted down....According to the people gathered around the finance table that day, OWS is considering becoming a non-profit 501c3 organization. Becoming a 501c3 would require OWS make its 990 tax forms available for public review. Whether or not they eventually decide to go the 501c3 route, they plan on being as transparent as possible. And any decision will likely be put before the GA for a vote...

[Demeter]

86. Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center

http://www.alternet.org/story/152875/wall_street_firms_spy_on_protesters_in_tax-funded_center?akid=7780.227380.JNkf6K&rd=1&t=3

Wall Street’s audacity to corrupt knows no bounds and the cooptation of government by the 1 per cent knows no limits. How else to explain $150 million of taxpayer money going to equip a government facility in lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms, serially charged with corruption, get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on law abiding citizens. According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs’ Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD “is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan…One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.” At the time, Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor’s first born in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman’s deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD’s Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009....ThIS surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was eventually dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock. Under the imprimatur of the largest police department in the United States, 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD, are relaying live video feeds of people on the streets in lower Manhattan to the center. Once at the center, they can be integrated for analysis. At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters. In addition to video analytics which can, for example, track a person based on the color of their hat or jacket, insiders say the NYPD either has or is working on face recognition software which could track individuals based on facial features. The center is also equipped with live feeds from license plate readers.

According to one person who has toured the center, there are three rows of computer workstations, with approximately two-thirds operated by non-NYPD personnel. The Chief-Leader, the weekly civil service newspaper, identified some of the outside entities that share the space: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange. Others say most of the major Wall Street firms have an on-site representative. Two calls and an email to Paul Browne, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, seeking the names of the other Wall Street firms at the center were not returned. An email seeking the same information to City Council Member, Peter Vallone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, was not returned...In a press release dated October 4, 2009 announcing the expansion of the surveillance territory, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly had this to say:

“The Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative will add additional cameras and license plate readers installed at key locations between 30th and 60th Streets from river to river. It will also identify additional private organizations who will work alongside NYPD personnel in the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, where corporate and other security representatives from Lower Manhattan have been co-located with police since June 2009. The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center is the central hub for both initiatives, where all the collected data are analyzed.”

The project has been funded by New York City taxpayers as well as all U.S. taxpayers through grants from the Federal Department of Homeland Security. On March 26, 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) wrote a letter to Commissioner Kelly, noting that even though the system involves “massive expenditures of public money, there have been no public hearings about any aspect of the system…we reject the Department’s assertion of ‘plenary power’ over all matters touching on public safety…the Department is of course subject to the laws and Constitution of the United States and of the State of New York as well as to regulation by the New York City Council.” The NYCLU also noted in its letter that it rejected the privacy guidelines for the surveillance operation that the NYPD had posted on its web site for public comment, since there had been no public hearings to formulate these guidelines. It noted further that “the guidelines do not limit police surveillance and databases to suspicious activity…there is no independent oversight or monitoring of compliance with the guidelines.”


SPECIFIC NAMES APPEARED HERE--- EDITED FOR LENGTH

Wall Street is infamous for perverting everything it touches: from the Nasdaq stock market, to stock research issued to the public, to auction rate securities, mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, credit default swaps with AIG, and mortgage securitizations. Had a public hearing been held on this massive surveillance sweep of Manhattan by potential felons, hopefully someone might have pondered what was to prevent Wall Street from tracking its employee whistleblowers heading off to the FBI offices or meeting with a reporter. One puzzle has at least been solved. Wall Street’s criminals have not been indicted or sent to jail because they have effectively become the police.

[Demeter]

87. RACHEL MADDOW AND MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE FRAUD

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908//vp/45040809#45040809

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88. Occupy the Silver Screen? 10 Films to Get You Ready to Occupy Wall Street

http://www.alternet.org/story/152841/occupy_the_silver_screen_10_films_to_get_you_ready_to_occupy_wall_street?page=entire


The spirit of Occupy Wall Street is contagious, and may soon have its first large-scale appearance in pop culture: Christopher Nolan is filming The Dark Knight Rises, the third film in the Batman trilogy, in New York beginning October 29, and there is a rumor they'll be shooting down at Zuccotti Park. LA Times:

But using a real-life location like the Occupy Wall Street protests — particularly in the city nicknamed Gotham — would add an element of gritty authenticity to 'Rises." It also would fit with the franchise's preoccupation with themes of urban order and civil unrest, which "Dark Knight" explored at length.

It’s unclear how protesters would react if cameras for “The Dark Knight Rises” were nearby. A former independent-film director, Nolan wouldn’t seem to have much in common with Wall Street fat cats. But he is overseeing a $250-million production financed by one of the world's largest media conglomerates.

On the other hand, some demonstrators may find that the film accords with their mission. The casting call says that characters will inhabit "a city besieged by crime and corruption." That’s almost like a description you’d read on a, well, Occupy Wall Streeter's protest sign.

The financial crisis has already emerged as inspiration for films; with OWS potentially making it to the silver screen as early as 2012, what other movies may have predicted the movement's longevity and force? Here are 10 that have either direct or indirect influence on the current peoples' movement.

1. Margin Call

2. V for Vendetta

3. Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps

4. La Chinoise

5. Gandhi

6. The People vs. Larry Flynt

7. Milk

8. Werckmeister Harmonies

9. Newsies

10. Reds

Honorable Mention: You still haven’t seen Inside Job yet? You won’t be finished watching last year’s crucial analysis of the crisis before you start writing slogans on posterboard and packing a Zuccotti-ready tent.

SEE LINK FOR PLOT SUMMARIES AND DETAIL...

[Hotler]

105. Second honorable mention: Too Big to Fail. eom.

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89. Beyond Occupy Wall Street: 11 American Uprisings You've Never Heard of That Changed the World

http://www.alternet.org/story/152824/beyond_occupy_wall_street%3A_11_american_uprisings_you%27ve_never_heard_of_that_changed_the_world?page=entire

Each of these movements won lasting social change. Their limitations provide lessons about what not to do, while their successes offer a guide to future action.

1. Lowell Mill Women’s Strikes (1834 and 1836)

2. Great Railroad Strike (1877)

3. The Pullman Strike (1894)

4. The Bonus Army War (1932)

5. Auto-Lite Strike (1934)

6. West Coast Waterfront Strike (1934)

8. Flint Sit-Down Strike (1936)

9. Post-World War II Servicemen’s Strike Wave (1945)

10. Black Revolutionary Union Movement (1968)

11. Serviceman Resistance to the Vietnam War

Lessons for Today

Every American uprising, no matter how seemingly successful, has limitations. Conversely, every American uprising, no matter how seemingly impotent, contains powerful lessons for future movements. While we can be inspired by movements of the past, cheerleading is always counterproductive. Rather, we should critically examine social movements, always looking to emulate the best and eschew the worst. From the Lowell Women’s Mill Strike to Occupy Wall Street to whatever the next American uprising is, learning history’s lessons is a crucial part of the struggle for those who want to fight and win.

SEE LINK FOR SUMMARIES/DETAILS

[Demeter]

91. Eric Janszen: We Are Witnessing The Death of the Dollar

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/eric-janszen-we-are-witnessing-death-dollar/64317?utm_source=newsletter_2011-10-30&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_title_64317&utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_42

What do you get when the producer of the world's reserve currency takes on too much debt? Nothing less than the end of the US Treasury-based monetary system. So says Eric Janszen, economic and financial market analyst and proprietor of iTulip.com. In chronicling the decline of the global economy over the past decade, Eric has formulated a framework called the "Ka-POOM" theory, which endeavors to understand how the immense run-up in global debt will be resolved...In short, it looks at the credit bubble that began in the early 1980's, started accelerating in 1995, and has now reached epic proportions. The amounts are so staggering at this stage that Eric believes it is too politically undesirable to let natural market adjustments clear them away -- the magnitude of the deflationary pain this would create is simply unacceptable for politicians looking to get re-elected. The only other available option is to service these debts via a dramatically devalued currency. Hence the key role the Fed is playing today.

The Fed is at the epicenter of this process, intervening heavily to keep the natural corrective market forces at bay. In this, it has a dual strategy. The first is to keep asset prices high (i.e., fight asset deflation), which it is doing by keeping interest rates historically low. The second is to keep wage and commodity costs under control, which it primarily does via devaluing the currency (maintaining a "weak dollar"). And, of course, through its intervention, the Fed is doing all it can to keep the current financial system in place to perpetuate the process for as long as possible. The end result is a fundamental shift in risk from Wall Street to the taxpayer.

So the big question is: How long can this last? Is there a point at which confidence in the system breaks and market forces finally overwhelm the intervention? Eric's answers: "Much longer than most people expect." And "Yes."

First off, as the most important central bank in the world, the Fed has supernormal powers. In theory, it can expand its balance sheet infinitely. Its ability to absorb massive amounts of new liabilities is theoretically limitless, much of which can be easily concealed from an accounting standpoint. And since the US is both the world's largest economy, as well as the provider of its reserve currency, other countries are compelled to support the current regime. A mortal crack-up in the US economy would deliver undue pain to all its trading partners, so they continue to buy Treasuries in sufficient amount to fund US economic activity. But that's not to say they're happy about it. And here's where attention should be paid (and where the importance of gold comes in).

For much of the past century, the United States comprised approximately 54-58% of the global economy. Today, its share has shrunk down to about 18%, meaning its relative importance to the global system has diminished. Issuing the world's reserve currency is a privilege that must be continually earned through transparency and sound stewardship -- qualities the US has flagrantly lacked in the past several decades as it has been blowing asset bubbles and running trillion-dollar deficits, via incurring massive debts and increasing its money supply tremendously. So, even as they continue to support the current Treasury-backed monetary regime, the world's central banks have begun hedging their exposure.

After several decades of being net sellers, the world's central banks became net buyers of gold in the second quarter of 2009. As Eric puts it:

There was no Plan B in the global monetary system when it switched over to the US dollar reserve basis for global monetary reserves. The only fallback is gold, gold is the only reserve asset that central banks hold other than dollars, and to some extent euros, but it is mostly gold. So gold is the fallback. So what I thought was going to happen is that over time, gradually, that there would be an increase at some point in gold holdings by central banks as they hedged the marginal increase and the number of Treasury bonds that they needed to hold as a result of conducting trade with the US and also simply maintaining the US economy through low interest rates and providing sufficient investment to continue to offer the US government.

So what is very interesting to me is starting in the second quarter of 2009, right after the financial crisis, is when global central banks became net buyers of gold, which to me indicated that they had as a group, determined that it was time to more seriously hedge their dollar assets, even as they continue to buy Treasury bonds to increase their hedging.

Before that, there were effectively two teams: There were the buyers, who were countries like India and Russia and China, and the sellers, which are most of your European countries. And that structure of the gold market occurred and was maintained until the second quarter of 2009, and it shifted to a much broader base increase in the number of governments participating in the gold market, including Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and other allies of the United States.

Eric sees this move by central banks, of positioning themselves closer to the door, as a natural step to the inevitable endgame here, which is the dissolution of the US Treasury dollar-based monetary system. Due to entrenched special interests, politics, escalating commodity scarcity, and other factors, he does not see the US taking necessary corrective action before confidence in the solvency of the US and its currency collapses. As such, Eric advises investors position themselves into gold and assets that take advantage of rising rents and energy prices.

VIDEO AT LINK

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93. The Real Contagion Risk

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/real-contagion-risk/64067?utm_source=newsletter_2011-10-30&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_title_64067&utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_42

...It is always the marginal country, weakest stock in a sector, or fringe population that gives us the early warning that trouble is afoot. For example, rising food stamp utilization and poverty levels in the US indicate that economic hardship is progressing from the lower socioeconomic levels up towards the center -- that is, from the outside in. That exact pattern is now playing out in Europe, although arguably the earliest trouble was detected with the severe weakness seen in the eastern European countries nearly two years ago...Because of this tendency for trouble to begin at the periphery before spreading to the center, here at ChrisMartenson.com headquarters we spend a disproportionate amount of our time watching junk bonds instead of Treasurys, looking at weak sectors instead of strong ones, and generally spending our time at the edges trying to scout out where there are early signs of trouble that can give us a sense of what's coming next. In this report, we explore the idea that Europe is the canary in the coal mine that tells us it is time to begin preparing for how the world might change if the contagion spreads all the way to US Treasurys (which is mathematically inevitable, in our view).

Why the US Should Care About Europe

At the very core of the global nuclear money reactor are US Treasurys and the dollar. If the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency wanes or even collapses, then the scope and pace of the likely disruptions will be enormous. Of course, we'll be glad to have as much forewarning as possible. Accordingly, it is my belief that if the contagion spreads from Greece to Portugal (or Italy or Spain), and then to the big banks of France and Germany in such a way that they fail, then rather than strengthening the dollar's role (as nearly everyone expects), we should reserve some concern for the idea that the contagion will instead jump the pond and chew its way through the US financial superstructure. While I am expecting an initial strengthening of the dollar in response to a euro decline, I believe this will only be a temporary condition.

The predicament is that the fiscal condition of the US is just as bad as anywhere, and we'd do well to ignore the idea, widely promulgated in the popular press, that the US is in relatively better shape than some other countries. 'Relatively' is a funny word. In this case, it's kind of meaningless, as all the contestants in this horse race are likely destined for the glue factory, no matter how well they place. While there are certain to be a lot of false starts and unpredictable twists and turns along the way, eventually the precarious fiscal situation of the US will reach a critical mass of recognition. Before that date, the US will be perceived as a bastion of financial safety, and afterwards everyone will wonder how anyone could have really held that view... What happens when the same sweep of recognition visits the US Treasury markets? Is such a turn of events even possible or thinkable? Here's one scenario.

How Contagion Will Spread to the US

My belief is that someday, perhaps within a matter of months but more likely in a year or two, the US Treasury market will fall apart as certainly and as magnificently as did Greece’s. Here’s how that might happen:

Step 1: As the global growth story frays, global trade decelerates, and the sovereign and total debt burdens of various countries drag at economic growth, fewer and fewer dollars will be accumulated and stored by various foreign central banks. The typical way dollars are stored is in the form of Treasury holdings. Because of this, several years of record-breaking Treasury accumulation by these foreign banks will grind to a halt and foreign Treasury holdings will begin to decline.

Step 2: The US government, thinking that foreign lending had somehow become a permanent feature of life and having consequently ramped up spending and borrowing to record levels, will find itself unable to adjust quickly, especially with an election year in sight. Federal borrowing continues amidst a sea of squabbling over meaningless, barely symbolic cuts to spending, even as official foreign demand for Treasurys wanes.

Step 3: After it is recognized that the central banks are taking a breather from more Treasury accumulation, private participation in Treasury auctions begin to wane, with the bid-to-cover declining and eventually approaching dangerously thin levels. In parallel, Treasurys traded on the open market begin to creep up in yield, indicating that more sellers than buyers exist.

Step 4: The Federal Reserve, having publicly committed itself to maintaining a zero Fed Funds interest rate through 2013 and therefore finding itself in the awkward position of having to save face, will be forced to funnel more money into the Treasury market. But because it is already committed to selling short-maturity paper in favor of long-dated paper, it does this by announcing another round of quantitative easing (QE) in some other asset class held by the sorts of financial institutions that will have no choice but to immediately park that thin-air money into Treasurys. The holdings of money market funds come to mind.

Step 5: The rest of the developing world, especially China, takes an increasingly dim view of the US reserving for itself the right to print money to buy government debt while admonishing other countries for doing the same. First, there are just verbal protests, but then more and more Treasury selling begins to hit the market. Wall Street, happy enough to make a few bucks by flipping Treasurys at the Fed’s bequest, now sees that there’s a lot more money to be made by selling Treasurys and even more to be lost by holding them. Selling of Treasurys, pushed by a shift in foreign perception of safety (and utility), begins to pick up.

Step 6: As the selling picks up, the rate of interest that the US government has to offer in order to attract sufficient buyers to new Treasury auctions continues to increase. Forced by this circumstance, the Fed has to raise rates in order to appear as if they are in control of the process, when, in fact, they are (once again) merely following the markets.

Step 7: As interest rates spiral higher, the amount of money that the US government (as well as state and local governments) must borrow in order to service rising interest costs creeps higher and higher. In other words, the more money the US government has to borrow, the higher the rate of interest they have to pay, which serves to force more borrowing, which makes the rate of interest go higher...and higher...and higher...each feeding the other in a classic debt spiral. This is the same dynamic that Greece is currently suffering through.

Step 8: The interest rate spiral creates a fiscal emergency for the US government, where the only choices are between slashing spending enormously (which would serve to crush the economy, perhaps by 10%-20%, and driving tax receipts down, sharply creating its own dynamic of pain), or running out of money and defaulting on its bills, or printing money and accepting a steep fall in the international value of the dollar. Because slashing spending is a delicate and politically painful process, by default it almost certainly will not happen in time to prevent the interest rate spiral from occurring. As to the idea of running out of money, that is deemed an unthinkable option, which leaves money printing as the most likely option.

Step 9: While it is the politically easier solution, money printing leads to the abandonment of the US dollar as the main reserve currency of the world. This does not happen very quickly, but neither is it a linear process. It proceeds in fits and starts, but the end result is that the US can no longer export dollars in exchange for things, and this alone changes everything. Long accustomed to being able to export dollars and import things, the US grew to view this historical oddity as an entitlement. But instead, it was a relic of circumstances, first of the relative position of the US after WWII, and second due to the temporary requirement that all oil purchases must be made in dollars. This ‘petro-dollar’ feature meant that any country wishing to buy oil first had to accumulate a dollar surplus. In short, this meant having to run a trade surplus, if not with the US, then with a country that had one itself. This allowed the US to export dollars while other countries had to export real things...

[Demeter]

94. How The Coming Decline with Play Out

http://www.chrismartenson.com/martensonreport/how-coming-decline-will-play-out?utm_source=newsletter_2011-10-30&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_teaser_64252&utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_42

Understanding The Economics Driving Energy Transition

Robert Allen of Oxford University has done some of the best work on the Industrial Revolution but he has also helped us understand the historic energy transition from Wood to Coal, in England. Along with the work of Vaclav Smil, Allen has shown that energy transitions are long, drawn out affairs that do not comport with the faith in efficiency that defines contemporary economic theory. This chart of BTU prices shows that natural gas is being offered each day in the bargain bin to the economy, but the economy is so inextricably tied to oil (liquids) that its existing infrastructure cannot take advantage of the opportunity.



Have you heard any economist, from Joseph Stiglitz to Nouriel Roubini, from Greg Mankiw to Robert Barro, or from Robert Reich to Larry Summers, even mention that a million BTU in natural gas can be obtained at a nearly 75% discount to a million BTU in oil? This is precisely the kind of market failure that contemporary economists exhort their students to discount. Faith in price, and the power of price, is thought to be paramount.

As we know, energy costs are part of the basic business proposition for an economy. It is completely understandable that when oil priced at $14 a barrel for nearly 25 years after WW2 (in inflation adjusted terms) a new highway system, built with cheap oil and utilized with cheap oil, returned enormous profit to the economy. California’s embrace of that proposition was a trade in which low margin agriculture was swapped for much higher margin wages in Defense and Aerospace industries. This is what characterized the post-war economy in places like southern California: if you have a very powerful and energy-dense input at your disposal, you will use it ad infinitum to maximize your profit. California’s gargantuan accumulation of wealth, and its rapid build out from 1945-2000, was funded by oil. Now what?

[Demeter]

96. BILL BLACK--THREE DEMANDS FOR OWS VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP3aCfkFuoo&feature=player_embedded

[Hotler]

112. Let me add this video. Thank you Demeter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld5tERIBvsg&feature=related

[Demeter]

116. Bet That Video Never Hit Cable or Prime Time

or any MSM...

[Demeter]

97. When offshoring backfires

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7226

As the global economic downturn grinds on, more companies are acknowledging that labour costs aren’t always the most important factor when deciding where to build their next factory. This column argues that, in times of recession, some companies find that bringing their business home can give them a competitive edge.

While politicians argue strategies to create jobs in the faltering global economy, the debate around offshoring has intensified. Once considered a clear competitive advantage in the fast-changing global market, manufacturers rushed to replace domestic labour forces with lower-cost workers in emerging markets. By 2002–03, about a quarter to half of the manufacturing companies in Western Europe were involved in offshore production (Dachs et al 2006). And by 2008, more than 50% of US companies had a corporate offshoring strategy (Minter 2009).

Recently, though, many of the perceived offshoring advantages have been called into question. First, the sourcing costs from emerging economies have been rising rapidly. For example, as of mid-2010, many Chinese firms were facing labour shortages and were forced to boost wages to attract qualified workers (Plunkett Research 2010). Second, the global commodity price index has risen significantly (Archstone Consulting 2009). This has led to more expensive transportation costs, particularly as a result of higher oil prices, as well as higher production costs. Third, the economic recession that started at the end of 2007 has had a severe impact on the market. Consumers are more cautious in spending, and firms are seeking new strategies to retain customers (Dodes 2011).

So it should not come as a surprise that more US manufacturers are ‘reshoring’, ’onshoring’ and ‘backshoring’. General Electric announced last year that it is moving some of its appliance manufacturing from China to Louisville, Kentucky. NCR Corp. is pulling all of its ATM machine production from China, India, and Hungary back to a facility in Columbus, Georgia, in order to customise products and get them to clients faster. In their announcements, these firms emphasised that by being closer to the market, they can better understand the market and are able to respond quickly to market changes...

[Demeter]

99. Berkshire Profit Declines 24% on Buffett's Derivative Bets

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said third-quarter profit fell 24 percent as derivative bets declined in value.

Net income slid to $2.28 billion, or $1,380 a share, from $2.99 billion, or $1,814, a year earlier, the Omaha, Nebraska- based company said yesterday. Operating earnings, which exclude some investment results, were $2,309 a share, beating the $1,796 average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Buffett, 81, uses derivatives to speculate on long-term gains in stocks and the creditworthiness of corporate and municipal borrowers. The contracts tied to equity indexes, which aren't scheduled to settle until 2018 or later, produced a loss of $2.09 billion in the period as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index posted its biggest decline since 2008. Liabilities on the equity derivatives rose to $8.85 billion.

"He's been in the negative position for some time now and I'm not worried yet, but it's something to keep an eye on," said Tom Lewandowski, an analyst with Edward Jones & Co., who has a "buy" rating on Berkshire. "Outside of the derivative losses it seems like he had a lot of broad-based growth throughout the businesses."

Insurance, which accounted for more than 40 percent of Berkshire's earnings last year, posted underwriting profit of $1.7 billion pretax, up from $305 million a year earlier. Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, which specializes in large risks, had a gain of $1.38 billion, compared with a loss of $237 million. The gain at car insurer Geico narrowed to $114 million from $289 million. Gains at General Re fell to $148 million from $201 million.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/11/04/bloomberg_articlesLU5YCU1A1I4H.DTL#ixzz1cq72X8E7

[Demeter]

101. Going off to Reality (shudder)

It's only 42F (38F windchill) and the frost is lingering in the shadows still, but it's 10 AM and I've got to deal with some stuff...I did make inroads on the email load, however!

You all carry on, and we'll catch up tonight!

[xchrom]

107. saturday morning -- cold but bright and clear.

:donut:

[xchrom]

108. Balancing the U.S. economy and Greece

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/05/uk-markets-global-weekahead-idUKTRE7A33SD20111105

(Reuters) - The most profound event of the past week for investors may not have been either the on-off referendum plans in Athens or the machinations of the Group of 20 in Cannes, but a comment from Ben Bernanke in Washington.

The Federal Reserve chairman essentially pledged to take more action -- if necessary -- to make the U.S. economy stronger.

Looked at from one standpoint, this was like saying to investors that if the euro zone crisis starts dragging Europe into recession, the Fed is there to help bail out world growth and maintain flows into riskier assets.

Conversely, if the euro zone does manage to contain its Greek problem then investors will be able to continue the risk rally that began in the lead up to the latest bailout agreement.

[Demeter]

115. Bernanke Can't Do Diddly

He's full of hot air, with which he can't inflate anything, any more.

[xchrom]

109. Georgia says Russia WTO deal to be signed Nov. 9

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/04/russia-wto-georgia-idUKL6E7M43UO20111104

TBILISI, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Russia and Georgia will formally sign an agreement on Nov. 9 that paves the way for Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization after 18 years of talks, a senior Georgian negotiator told Reuters on Friday.

A deal with Georgia is the last major hurdle to Russian entry which would open up its $1.9 trillion economy and cement its integration into the global trade system two decades after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

"The whole package of documents will be formally signed on November 9 in Geneva," Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergi Kapanadze told Reuters by telephone from Geneva after talks.

Kapanadze said Russia had formally informed Georgia that it agreed with the compromise deal worked out with the help of Swiss mediators, and added the document would be initialled on Saturday.

[DemReadingDU]

117. The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive

11/5/11 The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive

Charles Hugh Smith says:

I was recently challenged by a contributor to write something positive, and so I decided to write about the single most positive outcome of the current financial crisis in Europe: the complete collapse of the corrupt, predatory, pathological global banking sector and its dealers, the central banks.

Exploring why this is so reveals the insurmountable internal conflicts in our current financial system, and also illuminates the systemic political propaganda which is deployed daily to prop up a parasitic, corrupting, pathologically destructive financial system.

Our first stop is modern finance itself. Modern financial "products" and "instruments" are often highly complex and abstract, but the entire edifice can be distilled down to this: the system is based on the assumption that all risk can be hedged, and the difference between the initial position's yield/gain (i..e. placement of capital at risk for a gain) and the cost of hedging the risk of the wager to zero can be skimmed from the system risk-free.

That is the entire system in a nutshell, and we can immediately see the advantages of this system over traditional Capitalism, where risk can be hedged but never to zero, and the return is correlated to the risk taken on.

lots more, excellent reading
http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov11/collapse-of-corrupt11-11.html
or
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-collapse-our-corrupt-predatory-pathological-financial-system-necessary-and-positive

[Demeter]

121. The only way risk goes to zero is by passing it onto Uncle Sucker.

And that's exactly what Europe is going to try to do next, since China has already told them to go pound sand.

[xchrom]

118. Pot Farmers Depart as Companies Hire Lease-Breaking Firms {britain and not all about pot farmers}

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-04/pot-farmers-depart-as-companies-hire-lease-breaking-specialists.html

Legacy Portfolio, a U.K. company that takes over leases for unwanted offices and warehouses, sometimes gets more than it bargained for.

Last year, Legacy discovered that a south London depot was being used to grow marijuana. A month later, the building was hosting “rave” parties, prompting the company to hire former soldiers as security guards. Legacy found another warehouse, near Manchester, that collapsed after thieves stole the metal frame for scrap.

Both properties were formerly occupied by Wolseley Plc (WOS), the world’s largest plumbing and heating products supplier, which had transferred them to Legacy to help cut 77 million pounds ($124 million) of costs for 177 properties it no longer needed. The U.K.’s 100 largest publicly traded companies have unused buildings that will cost them about 1 billion pounds by the time the leases expire, Cushman & Wakefield Inc. estimates.

“Wolseley provided the kick-start to the market,” said Paul Vernham, head of corporate real-estate consulting at DTZ Group Plc. “Lease liability outsourcing will be an accepted practice, like sale and leasebacks, by the end of the decade for the private and public sector.”

[xchrom]

119. France to Cut Budget Deficit 20% With ‘Rigorous’ 2012 Budget, Fillon Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-05/france-to-lower-deficit-with-rigorous-2012-budget-fillon-says.html

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the 2012 budget will be France’s most “rigorous” since World War II in a bid to lower the deficit by a fifth.

“Reality has struck,” Fillon said in Morzine, in the French Alps, according to a copy of his speech. The government doesn’t have “hidden treasure” to finance record public spending and will soon adjust growth forecasts.

France’s budget deficit will be cut by 20 percent in 2012 from 113 billion euros ($156 billion) this year, Fillon said. The shortfall will narrow by 45 billion euros next year with half the savings coming from spending cuts and the rest by boosting government revenue, including plugging tax shelters, he said.

The French government is preparing to announce another set of austerity measures on Nov. 7 that could include a new rate of value-added tax for sectors like restaurants as well as one less annual holiday a year for workers, according to a report on the website of the weekly magazine L’Express. Details of the budgetary measures will be decided this weekend and unveiled after a cabinet meeting in two days, the report said.

[Demeter]

120. Well, Want to Know How Worried Retailers Are About Xmas?

Today's paper was double-sized, full to overflowing with slick and glossy ads featuring lots of stuff most of us could live a lifetime without buying, and have and probably will.

I am exhausted and sore from hauling it all around and trying to squeeze it into the bags and the paper boxes.

I am also frustrated by the people who will stop the paper for one day--thereby screwing up the route list something chronic, as I must keep the list myself (the paper people cannot put it in any kind of order, and print out the route in size 4 font, which is impossible to read in a vehicle's interior light.

I must say that the view of the stars this cold, clear morning was especially fine, when I was in a spot dark enough to see them...

[Demeter]

122. As Congress Squabbles, Another Shutdown Looms

http://news.yahoo.com/congress-squabbles-another-shutdown-looms-110000688.html

In case you haven't heard, the government is at risk of shutting down in two weeks. On Nov. 18 the federal government risks running out of funding yet again unless Congress can pass a budget for fiscal year 2012. On Wednesday, the 175-member conservative Republican Study Committee warned House GOP leaders that they were unhappy with the deal cut during the debt ceiling negotiations in August. As part of that agreement, the 2012 budget was capped at $1.043 trillion, representing a discretionary spending cut of only $7 billion — far too little in the eyes of the Tea Party crowd.

If conservatives House members oppose the budget, Republican leaders will have to rely on Democratic votes to get the bill through. 182 Dems have sent a letter to GOP leaders urging them not to include any policy riders — budget amendments on political hot topics such as abortion, health care reform, global warming and financial regulation that are almost always killed in the Senate. So, over the next week, the RSC will have to mull what's more important to them: pushing for riders or angling for more cuts. (See "Five Things for Liberals to Like in the Debt Ceiling Deal.")

Usually outspoken members on the Hill have drawn little attention to this brewing battle and for good reason. The last two embarrassing episodes that threatened to shutter the government sank congressional approval ratings into the single digits. House GOP leaders, sensing voter fatigue, are not eager for another round of brinkmanship. Which is why they greeted the RSC's latest outrage with a shrug. "I've got the impression we've got the votes with or without ," a source close to the process told Politico's Jonathan Allen.

Virtually no one on the Hill thinks the government will shut down this time. Congress has actually made headway on at least half of its 13 annual appropriations bills for the first time in nearly three years, a relatively amazing display of functionality for an institution that has repeatedly proven its inefficacy this year...That said, no one expected the last minute hiccups that nearly shut down the government in October, so there's certainly a chance that things will turn sour. And, just in case we don't get our monthly dose of dysfunction on Nov. 18, the deficit supercommittee's deadline for finding $1.2 trillion in budget savings is just five days later. Failure to reach an agreement by then wouldn't really end negotiations on Pennsylvania Avenue, but it could spark panic on Wall Street. You gotta love the members of the 112th Congress. When they aren't busy bringing the federal government to the brink of closure, they're tanking financial markets.

[Demeter]

123. Corzine Crashes Like It’s 2008 By JOE NOCERA

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/opinion/corzine-crashes-like-its-2008.html?_r=1&ref=business

When Goldman Sachs went public on May 4, 1999, Jon Corzine, who was then the firm’s chief executive, held a stake that was suddenly valued at $305 million. So, perhaps, it’s uncharitable to complain about the piddling $12 million severance he was poised to gain if he had managed to sell his current firm, MF Global Holdings, over the weekend. (THE SALE FELL THROUGH, MF GLOBAL WENT BANKRUPT, CORZINE DECLINED HIS SEVERANCE PAY AND HIRED A CRIMINAL LAWYER. MILLIONS OF CUSTOMER FUNDS HAVE VANISHED-DEMETER) But I’m going to complain anyway. The idea that Corzine, who single-handedly destroyed MF Global Holdings, was in a position to command so much as a penny in severance is horrifying. It suggests two things. The first is the extent to which “heads-I-win-tails-you-lose” remains the operative concept for Wall Street compensation. The second is that one’s politics doesn’t much matter when it comes to lining one’s pockets. Corzine is an avowed liberal who has decried income inequality and Wall Street pay — but right up until the end, he had his hand out for millions he didn’t deserve.

To read a recounting of Corzine’s tenure at MF Global Holdings is to wonder how he missed the 2008 financial crisis. Oh, yes! That’s right: he was the governor of New Jersey, a job he won in 2005 after one term in the Senate. Still, you would think that as a former Wall Street titan, he would have noticed that taking giant bets on shaky, long-term bonds while financing your operations with overnight loans that can be pulled at any second is not exactly a recipe for success...But that’s exactly what Corzine did. After taking over the firm in March 2010 — just months after losing his re-election bid to Chris Christie — he decided to transform the derivatives broker into something sexier, something more like his old firm, Goldman Sachs. In particular, he wanted MF Global to risk its own capital, trading for its own account, just like Goldman had so successfully done when he was running it.

Stunningly, the risky bets he took at MF Global were on European sovereign debt. “Europe wouldn’t let these countries go down,” he reportedly told another Wall Street executive, according to The Wall Street Journal. The firm’s position in European bonds grew to $6.3 billion — and its leverage ratio to 40 to 1, according to Egan Jones, a ratings agency. That is, it had $40 of debt to every $1 of equity. It was remarkably 2008-ish. As was the denouement. After a poor fiscal second quarter was announced last week, its stock fell off the cliff and Moody’s downgraded its debt. Its trading partners became skittish, and its access to the overnight lending market started to disappear. It was the classic modern Wall Street run on the bank — just like Lehman Brothers. Finally, Corzine’s only hope was to sell the firm. When that effort failed early Monday morning, a bankruptcy filing was inevitable. Just like Lehman.

When I read MF Global Finance’s second-quarter results, though, what popped out at me was its compensation expenses: 64 percent of revenues went to compensation. In any industry but Wall Street, that would be obscene. Indeed, in a talk he gave at Princeton last year, Corzine said that he’d been “arguing about compensation sins of Wall Street” for decades. Not enough to actually do anything about it, though, once he was back in charge of a firm. Then there’s Corzine’s own compensation. When he walked in the door, he negotiated a salary of $1.5 million. (Incredibly, MF Global Holdings paid a $400,000 fee to Corzine’s lawyers.) He also received a signing bonus of $1.5 million, and $11 million in stock options. But here’s the kicker. Like many executives — on Wall Street and off — Corzine’s agreement also covered his eventual departure. If he left MF Global because, say, it was sold, his $11 million in stock options would immediately vest, and he would get a $12.1 million golden parachute. Of course, the MF Global proxy statement doesn’t call it a golden parachute. It calls the payment “severance.”...There is nothing in the proxy statement about what would happen if Corzine destroyed the firm by making bad trading bets. There is nothing that links his payout to, you know, performance. No matter what, he would be owed the $12.1 million. All he had to do was sell the firm. So that’s what he tried to do. I’m not saying the payout was his only motive or even his primary motive. But, in less than two years, he took a $7-a-share stock and turned it into a $1.20 stock. Had he succeeded in selling MF Global, the price would surely have been less than $1. It seems almost criminal that Corzine was still entitled to a $12.1 million payment after destroying so much value. Yet that would have been the result. And you wonder why people are angry? Instead, the deal he had been negotiating fell through — and so did Corzine’s severance. Now he’s just another unsecured creditor. In this day and age, I guess that counts as progress.

[Demeter]

124. MFing Global

http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/2840/mfing-global

KVETCHING FROM A VERY DISSATISFIED CUSTOMER...

[Demeter]

127. It’s Lonely Without the Goldman Net

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/its-lonely-without-the-goldman-net/?ref=business

He was from Goldman Sachs.

That is the refrain you hear over and over again when MF Global insiders try to explain why they went along with Jon Corzine’s risky trades — the same ones that caused a crisis of confidence at the firm and, ultimately, its bankruptcy on Monday.

Mr. Corzine was at Goldman Sachs for nearly 25 years, rising to become its senior partner before being ousted in a boardroom coup in 1999. He was considered a bright, aggressive trader who had a history of making big bets that paid off. When he joined MF Global last year — after a decade in politics as a Democratic senator and governor of New Jersey — he talked openly about his ambition to create a mini-Goldman.

Being a former Goldmanite has long been considered the ultimate calling card. But, in some cases, it has proved to be a liability: A series of blunders by former senior Goldman executives raises questions about whether Goldman’s secret sauce can actually be exported. Think John Thain. Or Robert Rubin. Or J. Chris Flowers. “Those people walked around with halos around them. Myths have been created on Wall Street. Nowhere is the myth bigger than at Goldman,” William Cohan, the author of “Money and Power, How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World,” a 658-page volume that explored the firm’s history and culture, said in an interview. But Mr. Cohan, pausing briefly, added that whatever myths might exist around Goldman, “Everybody puts their pants on the same way, one foot at a time.” It is a lesson that some of Goldman’s smartest alumni have learned the hard way, none more so than Mr. Corzine.

His outsize bets at MF Global on European sovereign debt — many of which he made personally — proved the firm’s undoing because of the large amount of leverage that he used to magnify his bets. As of the firm’s filing at the end of June, it had $44.4 billion worth of liabilities; yet it only had $1.4 billion of equity. That kind of leverage was enough to scare credit ratings agencies into downgrading the firm last week, which led counterparties to stop trading with it. In truth, Mr. Corzine’s bet may still prove to be correct. Many of the Italian and Spanish bonds that Mr. Corzine bought — most of which mature in 2012 — are still trading at 98 and 99 cents on the dollar. Mr. Corzine’s investment thesis always was that the European Central Bank and the European Union would find a way to prop them up. But Mr. Corzine’s bets also relied on short-term funding and, given the skepticism in the market, counterparties quickly ran for cover. Even if Mr. Corzine’s gamble was right, it is hard to believe that he could have made such a large bet at Goldman Sachs. “The one thing Goldman really does well — better than everyone else — is the internal accounting and compliance function. They give those people a lot of power,” Mr. Cohan said. At MF Global, Mr. Cohan asked: “Who in the world was going to stand up to Jon Corzine? Nobody. They didn’t have the compliance or the culture.” That may be the special ingredient at Goldman. While the firm encourages risk-taking by its traders, it also empowers its risk managers — at other firms considered the back office — to constantly challenge even the most senior leaders to keep them from going over the cliff. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s current chief executive, loves to tell people that he spends “98 percent of my time thinking about 2 percent probabilities.” That is not something you hear from most bank chief executives...

MORE DIRT ON GS ALUMNI AT LINK

[Fuddnik]

125. They always said I'd wind up here.

Film at 11:00.

[Demeter]

128. You could have come to Hell, Michigan, for a lot less

and gotten frostbite, free of charge. Hell has frozen over!

[DemReadingDU]

136. Are you still in Hell?

How was the cruise!

[Fuddnik]

137. Nah, they were afraid I'd take over.

So, they sent me back this morning.

[Fuddnik]

126. Kick and Rec!

[Demeter]

129. Stuff to Anticipate Monday and Beyond:

things just coming into view:

[Demeter]

130. Most of the unemployed no longer receive benefits

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45173949/ns/business-stocks_and_economy#.TrXYe3L6PUY

The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four...

WHICH THEY ARE BUSY REDEFINING, IN AN EFFORT TO SHRINK THE NUMBERS...

[Demeter]

131. Italy In the Cross Hairs

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/11/italy-in-the-cross-hairs.html

Events continue to spiral beyond the control of European policy-makers. With so much time and effort being put into Greece, the troika now finds itself facing a much bigger problem: Italy. While it has been difficult to remain committed to a short EUR trade, we believe the crisis is entering into territory that will take a huge, sharp toll on the single currency in the coming days. Our year-end target of 1.29 remains intact, and we think the risk is that we hit it before the month is out.

Italian borrowing costs have continued to march upwards to new euro-era highs, with the 10-year quickly approaching the 7% level that many see as the point of no return. While it may be tempting to talk about contagion, we note that Italian debt numbers were already bad heading into this crisis. Rather, we think it is the failure of euro zone policy-makers to effectively bring closure to its debt crisis that has led to deterioration in sentiment that has ultimately brought Italy into crisis too. It was reported today in newswires that the IMF approached Italy about a stabilization program, but that Italy turned it down and instead requested IMF monitoring. This may have actually been the correct course of action for Italy. As we have noted countless times before, the current crisis response structure from the troika is simply too small to be able to help Italy in any meaningful manner.

That Italy is actually running a primary budget surplus means very little when markets are looking at a debt/GDP level above 120% in 2011. In the euro zone, only Greece is higher. With Europe and Italy heading into recession, it will be that much harder for debt-laden countries to improve that ratio. Italy has already been downgraded by all three agencies to stand at A/A2/A+, and further downside is seen as our sovereign ratings model has it at A-/A3/A-. While ratings have lost a lot of their significance during this debt crisis, we simply note that underlying fundamentals in the periphery are getting worse, not better, and that the recession there will only make things worse on the fiscal side. Indeed, it was slow growth over the past decade that really prevented the fiscal consolidation that others were able to see. Over the past 10 years through 2011 (with full year growth forecast at only 0.6% by IMF), Italy has averaged annual real growth of only 0.1%. So while Spain saw its debt/GDP fall from a peak of almost 70% in 1996 to a trough of 36% in 2007, Italy saw an improvement from a peak of 122% in 1996 to a trough of 104% in 2004.

Much of this is a confidence issue, with markets increasingly pessimistic about Prime Minister Berlusconi’s ability to deliver fiscal consolidation. Speculation swirls that he could step down, including press reports that his own Finance Minister Tremonti called on Berlusconi to resign. As of this writing, Berlusconi has shown no signs of acceding to these wishes, and ongoing political uncertainty will only prolong this turmoil in Italy. To us, the best solution for Italy would be for a technocrat government to take over that can deliver the stabilization measures that markets are demanding. Italy’s macro outlook won’t improve overnight, but getting confidence back is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for this crisis to get come under control...With regards to Greece, the political situation remains fluid as markets await the vote of confidence on Papandreou’s government. We cannot pretend to know what the outcome will be or how markets will react, but we simply posit that the bottom line is continued uncertainty. A disorderly default and euro exit by Greece is still tail risk, but markets have recognized that the tail has fattened in recent days. Even a best case scenario of Greece sticking with the October plan faces implementation risk. Even if everything falls in Greece’s favor, it will still only get debt/GDP down in the coming years to 120%, where Italy is right now. Deeper than 50% haircuts are needed to get Greece on a sustainable debt trajectory, so the debate is by no means over. Oh, and we got a reminder today that euro zone banking sectors remain under severe stress, with Moody’s putting an Austrian bank on review for downgrade due to recently-revealed losses related to its peripheral holdings. If a disorderly hard restructuring by Greece is seen, most of the euro zone sovereigns will have to backstop their banking systems and the resulting liabilities will certainly weigh on sovereign ratings. In the core euro zone, Belgium, France, and Austria remain the weakest credits.

[Demeter]

132. AND AFTER ITALY, CAN FRANCE BE FAR BEHIND?

[Demeter]

133. BUT, ENOUGH SWEETNESS AND LIGHT!

Have yourselves a safe and peace-filled week, and don't spend a lot on 11/11/11 (cursed be the marketers who think Veteran's Day is for commerce).

I'm going to be wrapping it up, with the exception of possible postings on Greek gods and mythology, which fascinated me as a child...

[bread_and_roses]

134. you too?

"Greek gods and mythology, which fascinated me as a child..."

I was too - I sometimes think it shaped me in ways I hardly recognize.

[bread_and_roses]

135. "Ordinary Greeks Are Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands"

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/03-11

Ordinary Greeks Are Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
Grassroots refusal to put up with austerity is quickly gaining momentum, as people give up on mainstream politics
by Hara Kouki and Antonis Vradis

In early October, a peculiar news item barely made its way into the back pages of Greek national press: in the northern city of Veria, a small group of people had started reconnecting the electricity supply of households disconnected from the national grid due to bill non-payment...

...Thousands of workers are to be put on reduced pay schemes across the country and hundreds are being fired on a daily basis. The government has raised already existing taxes and introduced a variety of new ones across the board, while slashing salaries and pensions in both the public and private sector. Official unemployment rose by more than 35% year-to-year and now stands at just under 20%; homelessness is on an enormous increase across the country, while tax on food consumption has shot up from 13 to 23%. At the same time, public transport is being dismantled and hospitals across the country barely function. For the first time, there were no books to be distributed in public schools and universities are in utter disarray. The "bloated" public sector has been portrayed as responsible for all the misery the country has to endure. At the same time, social services have been intentionally abandoned, making it easier for enraged citizens to accept the privatisation of the public sector in return.

Good article on what "austerity" means for ordinary Greeks.

[Tansy_Gold]

139. Kinda like

what so many of us SMWers have been advocating.


You go, Greece!



TG

[Prometheus Bound]

142. With all those spending cuts & tax increases, you'd think the 12.5% deficit would now be a surplus.

Instead it seems to be making the deficit worse.

[Prometheus Bound]

140. This is extremely interesting thread. Kind of like a mini DU.

[Demeter]

141. Welcome to the Weekend!

We are here most weekends, and most of us also haunt the Stock Market Watch continuing thread during market-trading days.

Many of us come to take refuge from the greater madness that is DU, and any fellow refuge is welcome!