Because his suggestion that a banking plan must involve restraining executive pay does not also call for fierce criminal prosecution of wrong doing.
There are thousands of people involved in this who should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Year: 2008
Deutsche Bank: Saving on Bullets
Deutsche Bank Executives have agreed not to take bonuses for 2008.
Well, it’s a start.
Not Enough Bullets…Again
It appears that former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg is less than satisfied with the deal he got when the US Government bailed out the insurance company, and he has written a letter to current CEO demanding more money.
In related news, Greenberg has invoked the Fifth Amendment with regards to inquiries from the New York State Attorney General.
Sarah Palin Her Emails, and Her Blatant Disregard for the Truth
Or perhaps is’s a disregard for reality. With her, it’s hard to tell.
In any case For what it’s worth, the Anchorage Daily News just cut her a new one* over her claims of vindication.
In any case, we now have her ordered to preserve her private emails from her Yahoo account, given that they are likely official records under the scope of Alaska’s law.
It also looks like the State Personnel Board’s investigation into Troopergate will be more aggressive than envisioned. It appears that the lead investigator, one Tim Petumenos, is a real pit bull, who has, “broadened to include other ethics complaints against the governor and examination of actions by other state employees.”
Then again the intent was not to cover up forever, it was to push it past election day, which it will.
In any case, in response to a request from the press for copies of emails to Todd “The First Dude” Palin from state officials, Palin is now saying that it will requre a payment of $15 million to process such a request, and that the records will not be turned over before the election.
What else is she hiding? This has gone from a standard Republican stonewall to something that would make Dick Cheney blush.
*Full discl
osure, I actually helped to design designed a tool to, “cut a carcass a new one”, the Jarvis Products bung dropper. You can see a video of it in action here.
White Space Passes Tests With Flying Colors
The FCC Office of Engineering Technology just finished its tests on “white space devices”, which operate in the space between television channels, and they have determined that they work without interfering with licensed TV channels in the spectrum.
Basically, these devices are supposed to detect which channels are in use by broadcast TV, and avoid those specific frequencies, which will open massive amounts of spectrum to small relatively low power devices.
It should be noted that there are strong forces opposed to such an application:
Opponents to the Google’s white spaces plan have included not just T-Mobile, but also the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the wireless microphone industry. These two groups contend that interference will be caused to HDTV and other digital TV signals if mobile devices start operating in currently unused white spaces next to spectrum allocated by the FCC for TV broadcasting.
And this opposition occurs without regard to whether there is interference, they object to the possibility of interference from infringing devices.
The fact is that the broadcasters and T-Mobile want to find a way to make money off of unused spectrum, and the wireless microphone industry has been a laboratory for interference problem, since they have been operating illegally in this spectrum for well over a decade, despite complaints from the public safety community (see here and here for some of Harold Feld’s marvelous takes on the hypocrisy of the Wireless mike industry).
I’m not sure where this is all going to go, though the fact that FCC chairman Martin is optimistic on open use of the spectrum is encouraging.
Note though that he is a short timer, and we don’t know who his successor will be after Bush and His Evil Minions™ leave office.
I’m Matthew Saroff, and I Approve this Message
From the pen of Randall Munroe:
Economics Update
We are all, as Bender is wont to say, “totally boned”, and you need to look no further than the fact that :NASCAR is experiencing cash flow problems because financially strapped sponsors are bailing.
About the only good news is that collapsing demand appears to be keeping inflation in check.
BTW, the crisis just hit Phil Gramm’s bosses, as the Swiss government was just forced to bail out UBS.
Don’t expect a turn around in the real estate martket, because mortgage rates just posted their largest increase since 1987.
This might explain why the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing market index has fallen to an all time low, 14, where a neutral reading is 50.
In the real world of manufacturing, industrial production and the Fed Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index both plummeted to levels not seen in over a decade.
With a very strong indicatrions of a recession, commodities, in particular oil ($69/84/bbl!!!) and gasoline, continued their falls.
What takes this from an economic down turn to an apocalypse are signs of the apocalypse, and one of the is when Americans consumers save, rather than spend their money.
If you want another sign of the apocalypse, how about banks cutting back on issuing credit cards, because they need to hold additional reserves against defaults.
When banks cut back on what is probably their most profitable business, you know something is up.
Jobless claims for the week aredown, but week to numbers are noisy, and the it’s an artifact of the fact that we’ve had a hurricane free few days.
The dollar strengthened a little. I think that there are two competing pulls here: the concern that the US is no longer the financial colossus striding the world, and the habit of going into the dollar when times are uncertain.
It’s a Small World, But I am Not Painting it
Martin Eisenstadt discovered some interesting facts about “Joe the Plumber”. aka Joe Wurzelbacher.
It turns out that he’s related to Robert Wurzelbacher….
…wait for it….
Who was a senior vice president of American Continental Corporation
…wait for it….
Which was the parent company of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan.
…wait for it….
And he pled guilty to three federal fraud counts in response to the failure of that institution.
…wait for it….
Also it turns out that he was the son in law of
…wait for it….
Charles Keating!
Someone on the McCain campaign staff is reading this somewhere, and invoking Bender when he shouts, “We’re boned!
Not Enough Money in the World
It’s a scary phrase, but when credit default swaps have a nominal value in excess of the GDP of the world, it’s true in a sense. The level of fraud, waste, and abuse is at a level that exceeds all the money in the world.
Scare quote courtesy of Chris Floyd:
Try to imagine that: a $55 trillion market now at risk of complete destruction. Even the derivative debt owed by individual institutions stands at nation-wrecking levels. For example, a single bank in Britain, Barclays again, holds more than $2.4 trillion in credit default swaps, the tradable “insurance” mechanism against securities default. This is more than the entire GDP of Great Britain. If all this paper goes bad, there are not enough assets in the entire country to pay it off. And that’s just one bank, in one country.
Well, isn’t that special.
The Real Loser of the Debate
He’s in Amarillo, Texas, not the guy in Ohio, and when he sees this month’s hosting bill, he will absolutely plotz.
LOL Pic of the Day
Courtesy of Group News Blog:
SEC Failed to Monitor Bear Stearns Well Before Collapse
The SEC prematurely folded an investigation of Bear Stearns involvement in collateralized debt obligations:
In the report, obtained by CNBC, SEC Inspector General David Kotz says the agency inexplicably dropped the case in 2007, even after Bear Stearns had offered to pay a monetary settlement.
The report says the director of the SEC’s Miami office, David Nelson, had an “ongoing personal relationship” with the Bear Stearns attorney in the case. In dropping the case, Nelson allegedly told his friend, “Christmas is coming early this year,” adding Bear Stearns “can keep their money.”
More importantly, the SEC’s Inspector General notes that this investigation would likely have uncovered the problems that led to the demise of the investment bank.
Zimbabwe Deal Collapses
Basically, because Thabo Mbeki wanted a deal to secure his legacy, he forced the MDC to sign a deal that wasn’t fleshed out, so now Mugabe has unilaterally appointed his minions to head the military, police, and state media ministries.
This means that the ZANU-PF would retain control of the country, and their thuggish “war veterans” would continue to operate with impugnity.
Representatives of the MDC have stated the obvious, that they should have waited until the details on power sharing were hammered out. Of particular interest is the quotes that point the finger for this failure squarely at Mbeki:
Various media reports quote informed sources as saying: “Tsvangirai made it clear that he did not trust Mugabe and insisted that the key issue of the allocation of ministries should be put into black and white first and vowed he would not sign the deal if this condition was not met,” said a source who negotiated for Tsvangirai’s party. “Mugabe had promised that all the parties would have a key ministry and even suggested that he would retain Defence and Agriculture, while Tsvangirai would be allocated Home Affairs and Information. Mutambara was supposed to get Justice and Youth.”
But the sources said Mbeki lambasted Tsvangirai, after Mugabe had declared his commitment to making the deal a success. “Mbeki told him, ‘Heads of states are already here for the signing of this deal and you say you cannot sign’ – and Tsvangirai had no option,” said the source. Mbeki had held private talks with Tsvangirai the previous Tuesday as the power-sharing deal remained deadlocked.
It is now blindingly clear that Mbeki is, as I have repeatedly said, is the problem, not the solution.
Not surprisingly, Tsvangirai has threatened to withdraw from the power sharing deal as a result.
In an attempt to put out this fire by adding gasoline, Mbeki is headed back for more negotiations.
The right move would be to replace Mbeki with someone who isn’t in Mugabe’s pocket.
As a result we are seeing another refugee flood into South Africa, and threats of of new sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Mugabe’s thugs are returning to form, with riot police beating protesters.
It appears that the main driver of this is the fears of Mugabe’s generals that they would be subject to criminal prosecution if the opposition takes any control of the state security apparatus.
Quote of the Day: Dean Baker
In noting that many media outlets are swallowing the Republithug “It’s the n*gg*rs’ fault,” spin, Baker notes that, “USA Today Thinks It’s Possible That Elvis Caused the Financial Meltdown.”
I wish that I wrote that well.
Because Customers are Bothersome Things
It appears that Hotels are following the lead of airlines by having abusive fine print clauses, and just generally making customers uncomfortable.
Yeah, like travel and entertainment will save this economy.
Shakesville: Rhetorical Question of the Day
Mustang Bobby at Shakesville asks a question for all of us:
With the dizzying pace of the election and the economic crisis, it seems appropriate to ask: Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a Marx Brothers movie and you were Margaret Dumont?
The answer is, of course, yes.
Bush Goes to Jail
Or more accurately, he would in any system that has the real possibility for justice and honesty, so notes Dan Froomkin, who makes the point that it is now clear that Bush specifically authorized torture in a memo to the CIA.
Here is hoping that Obama goes after Bush and his Evil Minions ™, because healing by allowing the evil to skate, as was done by Gerald Ford with Richard Nixon, only encourages further evil.
NRCC Pulls Back Further on Ads
The National Republican Congressional Committee is further restricting their advertising, and will now be contributing to races that are very tight.
This is to maximize their bang for the buck, because they are lacking said bucks.
Heh.
On Bob Schieffer as Debate Moderator
He should not be moderator. He is a close friend of George W. Bush, and his brother was appointed ambassador by him.
I hope that Obama brings this up to put him on the defensive.
Nancy Reagan Hopitalized after Fall
Broken hip, though the prognosis appears to be good.
Interestingly, I feel much more positively towards her now than I did 20 years ago when Ronald Reagan was president.