On a note unrelated to economics, but related to the the article on Geithner, there was following picture, where you see the Code Pink protesters in the background.
These people piss me off. They seem to be dedicated to nothing more than mutual intellectual masturbation as guerrilla theater, and they do nothing but to convince decision makers that anyone who has less Wall Street friendly ideas is a DFH who does not deserve to be listened to.
These folks are playing to lose, but we all lose when they do so.
Let me start by saying that I’ve always thought that she was an anti-civil rights scumbag, so that colors my view of her, but this news is really big.
You can go to CQ politics for Jeff Klein’s story, but the short version is that Jane Harman wanted to be the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and in the process of lobbying various folks to get that position, which ultimately went to Silvestre Reyes, she talked to some member of the Israel lobby who was under a court authorized wiretap because they were under suspicion of being an Israeli intelligence operative, and she said that she would “waddle into” the AIPAC prosecution, and that she wanted them to intercede with Nancy Pelosi on her behalf regarding the Intel committee post.
According to sources who saw the transcript, she finished the discussion with the phrase, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”
Certainly, the implication of “interceding with Pelosi,” is that campaign donations were involved, though the article does not make a specific claim of campaign donations for Harman’s action.
This gets more complex because Alberto Gonzalez quashed the investigation of Harman because he wanted her support of the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretap program, she had always been supportive of the program, and the New York Times was finally getting ready to release the story, and they wanted a Vichy Dem to speak for them.
Let’s be clear, there was no indication of a quid pro quo between Abu Gonzalez and Harman, but neither did there need to be one. She was always in the tank on this issue.
I would also note that while Klein suggests that Harman interceded to get the story spiked at the Times in 2004, the editors there have categorically denied this.
I’m not sure whether there was a crime or not. Law enforcement officials seem to think so, but law enforcement officials always think that, as the other Matt notes, “….how many politicians’ reputations could really stand up to serious surveillance? ….. we have a political system that’s substantially powered by a kind of systematic, quasi-legalized bribery.”
He also has the bigger point, which is that politics is messy business, and if you were to wire tap any political figure, you would end up with stuff that is just plain sleazy, because that is how political “sausage” is made.
His best point, however is this:
Thinking about that further reinforces the point that selective, unaccountable surveillance is very dangerous. A president could do a great deal to gin up pretexts to wiretap members of congress and blackmail them even without the members doing anything unusually egregious.
Which really is the big point on why we should all object to the surveillance society.
Meanwhile a friend of John Aravosis thinks that this is all a tempest in a teapot, noting, accurately, that the AIPAC “spies” are not charged with espionage, i.e. acting as an agent for a foreign power, but rather acquiring sensitive government data under the (never used in this circumstance in the past 90 years) 1919 Espionage act:
The heart of the CQ story is incorrect…because Harman wasn’t acting on behalf of Israel. Rosen and Weissman aren’t being accused for spying on behalf of Israel. The CQ story is trying to depict Rosen and Weissman as convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. What Rosen and Weiss did is nothing like what Pollard was convicted of. Rosen and Weissman met with the State Department official on their behalf, not at the behest of Israel or AIPAC. To suggest so is wrong and that’s what stinks about this story. The fact that Stein’s title of CQ’s “Spy Talk Columnist” shows the inherent bias of this story and shows that it is teetering on pure fantasy.
In any case, it’s clear that if she had a normal security clearance, it would be yanked pending an investigation, and that she should never be chairman of the Intel committee, and it appears that Pelosi was aware of this episode, and it may have contributed to her passing over Harman for the position.
White supremacist wing nut Hal Turner has posted on his blog (no link to him, ever) that he has an advance copy of the Treasury’s bank stress tests, and that it shows that 16 out of the top 19 banks are already insolvent.
Were it from anyone else, I might be inclined to believe it, as it jibes with my sense of the state of the banking industry, but from him, I’d just as soon ignore it.
Only, I’m posting about it, which begs the question, “Why are you reading this?”
The answer is that I’m posting because a Treasury Department Spokesman formally denied Turner’s claims:
A U.S. Treasury spokesman said there’s no basis to a blog posting that buffeted financial stocks by saying that most of the nation’s largest banks are insolvent.
Andrew Williams, a Treasury spokesman, dismissed the report from Hal Turner of North Bergen, New Jersey, “particularly given we don’t have stress test results yet.” Turner has advocated violence against blacks, Jews and immigrants on his Web site and Internet radio show, according to the Anti- Defamation League, created in 1913 to monitor anti-Semitism.
Why is the US Department of the Treasury responding to what amounts to semi-literate scrawls on the wall of a bathroom stall?
I see three possibilities, in no particular order:
Turner has a friend in the Treasury, who thought that an official denial would get him some air play.
He actually has preliminary stress test documents.
The Treasury has come to the conclusion that its credibility, and that of the US banking industry is so pathetically low that they have no choice but to respond.
Honestly, none of these alternatives are particularly good ones, and if I had to place a bet, it would be on the last one, which would indicate that in less than 100 days, Mssrs. Geithner & Summers have completely pissed away their credibility, and they know it.
A new report released today by IHS Global Insight and PNC Financial Services Group revealed that the nation’s housing market as a whole is “slightly undervalued,” but said there was no sign of a bottom.
The so-called “House Prices in America” fourth quarter update found that home prices had fallen a collective 9.9 percent from their 2007 peak, although much more in sand states like California and Florida.
About the only thing that I can figure is that they are thinking that the dollar figures are Zimbabwean dollars of something.
Housing is still well above historical trends in terms of absolute price, rent/own ratio, and relative to wages.
Mr. Park, an unemployed 31-year-old, gained an almost prophet-like status among many South Koreans after he correctly predicted the collapse of the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, the crash of the South Korean currency — the won — and the effects on South Korea of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.
It appears that he also published some data in error, such as when he, “wrote that the government had banned financial firms and major companies from buying dollars in an effort to arrest the fall of the Korean won,” and the government charged him with, “spreading false data in public with a harmful intent,” and faced up to 5 years in prison. (!)
Considering my accuracy, I’d be facing life without parole.
The Indian Air Force has denied reports that the DassaultRafale has been eliminated from the country’s medium multi-role combat aircraft competition.
“We have not ruled anyone out yet in the MMRCA competition,” says an IAF spokesman, who confirmed that the service is responsible for evaluating the contenders. “All of the tests have not been completed. The technical evaluations are only just over and we are scheduled to begin the flight tests next month. Everyone is still in the competition.”
Last week, several Indian newspapers reported that the Rafale was eliminated after failing the technical evaluation. …..
I started collecting links on Sunday, and it appears that the the news has developed in a rather interesting manner, with strong statements that there would be no prosecutions, followed by a retreat by the Obama administration following push back from multiple quarters.
I asked Emanuel: “The president has ruled out prosecution for CIA officials who believed they were following the law. Does he believe that the officials who devised the policies should be immune from prosecution?”
“He believes that, look, as you saw in that statement he wrote, let’s just take a step back. He came up with this and worked on this for about four weeks. Wrote that statement Wednesday night after he had made his decision and dictated what he wanted to see. And Thursday morning I saw him in the office, he was still editing it. He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided,” Emanuel said.
What about those who devised the policy, I asked?
“Yeah, but those who devised the policy, he believes that they were, should not be prosecuted either,” Emanuel said.
“And it’s not the place that we go, and as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement, not the letter, the statement, and that second paragraph: “This is not a time for retribution. It’s a time for reflection. It’s not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and in a sense of anger and retribution.’ We have a lot to do to protect America. But what people need to know? This practice and technique, we don’t use anymore. We banned it.”
Once again, showing that, when absolutely forced to by the weight of public opinion, the Obama administration can come around on this.
This is a good thing, because whoever was involved in waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in one month, about 6 times a day, was not following even the Orwellian rules of Bush and His Evil Minions™.
Well, we are seeing new revelations about the NSA warrantless spying program, and this one is a doozy:
While the N.S.A.’s operations in recent months have come under examination, new details are also emerging about earlier domestic-surveillance activities, including the agency’s attempt to wiretap a member of Congress, without court approval, on an overseas trip, current and former intelligence officials said.
(emphasis mine)
Great googly moogly!
This is why it needs to be pursued, and people need to be prosecuted, because this was not some sort of intelligence gathering operation, it was one of Dick Cheney’s moles trying to wiretap someone for political advantage.
The people who did this need to be rooted out, and have their clearances stripped, and senior folks who authorized this need to go to jail.
This might explain why AIG CEO Edward Liddy was so eager to pay back Goldman Sachs at 100¢ on those bogus AIG credit default swaps (CDS).
Seriously, just how much corruption and self dealing is Obama/Geithner/Summers going to tolerate before they start looking at criminality?
This is a lot worse than a, “$6000 gold-and-burgundy floral patterned shower curtain,” and the idea that the taxpayer can’t place conditions on aid, because the CEOs will choose their own pay over the well being of the taxpayer is the active and open looting of these companies by senior management.
It should be viewed as a criminal act.
I’m not saying that senior management cannot quit, but I am saying that if they are unwilling to act in the best interest of the shareholders, they should be fired.
I find this very odd. Dassault and India have a long and established relationship, with India owning and operating Mirage 2000s, and at one point, offered to transfer the whole Mirage 2000 line to India.
The idea that they did not cross their “I”s and dot their “T”s, and thus was dropped from the Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition is curious.
In any case, it appears that the Official MMRCA trials in August, with the, Boeing F/A-18, Lockheed Martin F-16, Eurofighter Typhoon, RSK MiG-35 and Saab Gripen.
What’s more, it puts a pin in the Congress to put something in legislation, because the EPA can institute regulations that are far more expansive, without the opportunity for bribery campaign contributions.
While I am regularly (OK, constantly) criticizing the Obama administration for their mishandling of the banking crisis and the banking system and their avoidance of any real investigation of crimes against humanity and corruption by Bush and His Evil Minions&trade, this is real change, and beneficial.
We will now be returning to the regularly scheduled broadcast.
Because the corporate raider that Barack Obama has put in charge of the auto industry bailout has now been tied to a kickback scheme involving the New York state pension fund:
The man leading the Obama administration’s efforts to restructure the auto industry has been described in Securities and Exchange Commission documents as having arranged for his investment firm to pay more than $1 million to obtain New York State pension business.
Although he is not named in the documents, a person with knowledge of the inquiry said the investment executive is Steven Rattner, co-founder of the Quadrangle Group, the prominent private equity firm
Gee….Hoocoodanode that a man who is a corporate chop shop might be ethically challenged.
This is why expertise does not trump ethics and philosophy. Summers, Geithner, Rattner, etc. are all either wrong doers, or were until recently in the pay or wrong doers, and are largely responsible for the problem.
It’s like making an arsonist for hire your fire department chief.
I don’t think that this is a good thing, because it’s a symptom of an increasingly draconian IP regime worldwide, which is now serving to hinder, rather than promote, creative and inventive activities.
“We have been invited to the White House and look forward to a constructive dialogue,” she said.
On the eve of the White House meeting, the House Financial Services Committee is planning to consider credit card legislation aimed at reforming the industry, which is facing massive pressure to lessen debt burdens on cardholders, one source said.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and other officials are planning to attend the meeting, but U.S. President Barack Obama is not, the sources said.
(emphasis mine)
Color me skeptical. Between Tim “Eddie Haskell” Geithner, who has been the big bank’s bitch since birth, and Larry Summers, who has taken millions just last year from hedge funds, I can’t see this as anything but an attempt to minimize reforms in the credit card industry.
Obama isn’t there because he wants plausible deniability when they come out with an “agreement” that is far weaker than anything going around Congress.
If it were otherwise, then they would be talking with Congress, not the credit card industry.
David Fulghum and Bill Sweetmanpost their observations, most of which are obvious from the top picture, edge alignment, a serpentine inlet, a flattened exhaust nozzle, and a lack or right angles for stealth, along with a roughly 10 foot long weapons bay, more than enough for 500 lb JDAMS, or Hellfires, etc., and some wing to accommodate the higher speeds that the jet engine can generate.
There are some more pictures here, and you can also look through the Aviation Weekgallery.
The aircraft has been designed with folding wings and a tail hook (bottom pic), which implies that it is intended to be operated from an aircraft carrier at some point, and this is clearly an early prototype, as the current air data probes, and the antenna/sensor on the bottom of the fuselage (also bottom pic) appear to be decidedly non stealthy.
I watched Keith Olbermann’s special comment from last night on Youtube, as I was too busy wrapping Passover to watch the show.
While I generally agree with him, I find him powerful even when I disagree with him, or find his conclusions lacking, as was the case last night, and I’m not referring to the Kaiser thing.*
In this case, I believe that KO did not go far enough.
While he is correct that letting people off for “just following orders”, as is implied by the statements that those , “carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice,” will not be subject to prosecution.
The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.
This is not to say that refraining from after the little fish to target the big fish is a violation of this.
That is a legitimate prosecution strategy.
However, it increasingly appears that President Obama and Attorney General Holder do not intend to go after anyone, and in so doing, they are, but not going after anyone, with the explanation that this is, “moving forward”.
This is a obstruction of the prosecution of these acts is a war crime, and if this means no prosecution, it is an affirmative act to obstruct the course of justice.
Certainly, there are alternate venues, such as some sort of “Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” but all indications are that the White House are fighting even this weak tea.
I believe that, in the absence for support for some sort of fact official fact finding process, it makes Eric Holder and Barack Obama accessories after the fact to a crime against humanity.
In the short form, people who actively work to subvert any process of judicial or semi-judicial fact finding inquiry, outside of the context of legitimate activities of defense counsel, are war criminals, including the current President and Attorney General of the United States of America if they choose to continue this course.
That being, said, I am an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit,‡ and I would be interested in hearing opinions from people with a deeper knowledge of both US and international law.
*The Kaiser committed no war crimes by the standards of the day, notwithstanding the accusations of amputation Belgian babies hands† made in the early days of the war. The rules had not yet caught up with the technology of war, and if the Kaiser were guilty, than every participant in the war would have been guilty. †Ironically, the Belgians, during the genocide phase of their rule over what was then the Belgian Congo DID require their native levees to return a human hand for each bullet fired, in order to prevent them from “wasting” bullets hunting game for food, along with holding families hostage, etc. ‡I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!
Taking the rate of change month to month is stupid, it’s the noisiest way to measure things, but there is real pressure to report prosperity “just around the corner,” because the alternative is to make real systemic changes that would have to be to the disadvantage of people like bank and brokerage presidents.
Credit-default swaps traders set a value of 3.25 cents on the dollar for bonds of an AbitibiBowater Inc. unit to settle derivatives linked to the newsprint maker that’s now in bankruptcy protection.
The price means sellers of credit swaps guaranteeing as much as $1.1 billion against a default by the Abitibi- Consolidated unit would pay 96.75 cents on the dollar to settle the contracts. Eleven dealers, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley, bid in the auction, which was administered by Markit Group Ltd. and broker Creditex Group Inc.
On a note unrelated to economics, but related to the the article on Geithner, there was following picture, where you see the Code Pink protesters in the background.
David 
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