So they are trading an explicit guarantee with an implicit guarantee, and in exchange, they get to overpay themselves again.
Year: 2009
Terrorists Running Wild in Big Apple
Oh, my god, a terrorist is running loose on the streets of the city….Only, he isn’t. He’s at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where other people who were tried and convicted of the same crime where held.
Why is Barack Obama letting the ‘Phants demagogue this issue?
Fiat Signs the Purchase Papers
The Supreme Court withdrew the stay, and now the fat lady has sung regarding Fiat’s purchase of Chrysler.
Terrorism Works
Women’s Health Care Services, Inc., the women’s health clinic run by Dr. Tiller before he was assassinated, will be closed permanently.
Unless aggressive action is taking against the terrorists at the federal level, including the use of FACE, material support of terrorism, and RICO statutes, along with an aggressive use of asset forfeiture actions, the terrorists will win.
Drama Queens Throwing Hissy Fit
Lieberman and Graham are at again, promising to filibuster the Senate on everything because their Bush era torture photo cover-up amendment was pulled from the Iraq/Afghanistan authorization.
Review of TARP Stress Tests Calls them a Sham
The Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) chaired by Elizabeth Warren is saying that the stress tests were incomplete, too optimistic as to economic condistions, and too opaque
Opacity seems to be the Obama model on everything from the economy, to torture, to crimes by Bush and His Evil Minions&trade.
Yes
Rachel Morris of Mother Jones asks, “Could Cap and Trade Cause Another Market Meltdown?”
This has been another episode of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
Leon Panetta Says that We Intend to Keep Torturing
So, Barack Obama and His Evil Minions,™ are still arguing in court that there is no crime by Bush Cheney that they will not cover up:
The forced disclosure of such material to the American Civil Liberties Union “could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security by informing our enemies of what we knew about them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence we possessed,” Panetta argued.
….
The “disclosure of explicit details of specific interrogations” would provide al-Qaeda “with propaganda it could use to recruit and raise funds,” Panetta said, describing the information at issue as “ready-made ammunition.” He also submitted a classified statement to the court that he said explains why detainees could use the contents to evade questions in the future, even though Obama has promised that the United States will not use the harsh interrogation techniques again.
(emphasis mine)
If you aren’t torturing any more, the information is no longer sensitive.
I cannot see any reason to make this argument unless the Gulags are still in place, and they intend to keep using them, or are still using them.
Boston Globe Newspaper Guild Rejects Wage Cuts
So the New York Times Corporation is unilaterally implementing a 23% wage cut.
I think that the National Labor Relations board may have something to say about this.
Absent bankruptcy, a contract is a contract.
I think there have been a number of reasons that this was rejected.
First, the Times‘ financial problems, are not as a result of the declines in the newspaper industry, but because of the enormous amount of debt that they took on to build, and move into, a swanky new headquarters building in 2007, and to pay (borrowed) cash for it.
When they could not roll over the short term loan, because of the financial crisis, they had to take a loan from Carlos Slim at very high rates. (14% !)
It also did not help that management handled communications abysmally, refusing to talk to its employees about the offer, refusing to send New York execs to the newsroom, and getting the math wrong, and then refusing to adjust the deadline, and making the cuts for rank and file about 50% larger than those of management.
This wasn’t a communication of the needs of the corporation, it was a communication of contempt for Boston by the folks in New York.
It should also be noted that the fact that the Times was not looking at New York for any give backs, and in fact continues to spend profligately, and just 2 weeks ago, the gift that keeps on giving, Thomas Friedman, shot his mouth off about how he never had to talk to an editor about what he is doing or spending:
Thomas Friedman, the Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist, lauded the efforts that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., has made to keep the newsroom intact, saying, “I just have a great deal of admiration for him.” He told me that since taking his current post, in 1995, he has never been asked by Sulzberger what he was planning to write, or how high his travel expenses would be. “To be able to say what I want to say and go where I want to go—other than a Sulzberger-owned newspaper, you tell me where that exists today.”
(emphasis mine)
So, once again, Thomas Friedman, the man who is always wrong, drops another steaming redolent load on people who are ordinary enough that they have to work for a living.
I don’t know why the pay his travel expenses, he can create fictitious taxicab drivers who say exactly what he wants them to say while sitting at his home.
Economics Update
Well, we have good news, that consumer confidence rose in June, to 50.8, which means that it crossed 50, the dividing line between optimism and pessimism.
We also have mixed news in that wholesale inventories fell for the 8th straight month, which can either mean that we are seeing continued weak demand, or that we are approaching the point where orders have to pick up, because they still need to ship to retailers.
For what it’s worth, and I’m not a big fan of the predictive powers of “the market”, but both oil rose on the expectation of increasing demand and the US dollar fell, on reduced demand for a safe haven.
It’s Good to be the King
H/t WallStreetJackass for the Pic.
Poster Child for Regulatory Capture
So, it seems that after much in the way of government bailout money, and the fact that much of their voting equity is now government owned, the FDIC is looking at ousting Citi CEO Vikram Pandit.
There is one problem though, evidence of excessive spending on his lavish offices, his pay, and his bonuses is not enough to convince Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner that a management change is justified, so he’s digging his heels in to keep Pandit as running, and mismanaging, Citigroup.
The first reform we need is to make sure that senior political officials who make policy aren’t just the big bank’s towel boys, and this ain’t happening.
Auto Industry Update
GM has arranged a sale of Hummer to a Chinese firm, and sold the Saturn brand to the Penske auto dealer group.
This actually bodes well for Saturn, because former race car driver Roger Penske is a real car guy.
He doesn’t get the manufacturing facilities or design capabilities, though GM will keep 3 models rolling out for the next 2 years, so he will probably go with foreign manufacturers to supply the dealership network, most likely Renault.
If he brings in some of the high MPG diesels, he will have a real winner.
The problem with Saturn is that GM left the brand stagnant for nearly a decade.
In addition to dumping a number of brands, GM is shutting down medium duty truck production, so it’s completely getting out of the business of making commercial trucks that are the basis for things like dump trucks and cement mixers.
Finally, the Supreme Court placed a stay on Chrysler’s sale to Fiat, pending resolution of disputes with bond holder/vulture speculators.
Fiat has said that this won’t queer the deal…..Yet.
In Your Face, Barack Obama
It appears that the Graham Lieberman photo suppression amendment, , which would have suppressed all torture photos from the time of the Bush administration, and only from the time of the Bush administration, has been dropped from the Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental in conference committee.
The liberal members of Congress made it clear that they would not vote for any bill containing this provision, and the conference committee has dropped it.
Background here.
Those people who contacted their Congressmen, including me, are to be commended for killing this abomination.
So, Just How Broken is the Defense Procurement Process?
Well, the contract for the Navy’s A-12 stealthy attack plane has finally been officially canceled.
What, you don’t remember the A-12? Dick Cheney canceled it.
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney canceled it, in 1991, because it was late, over budget, and overweight, and the US Court of Appeals has finally ruled, 18 years later, that the government was justified.
18 bloody years.
Here’s a Surprise
And in my own backyard, no less.
We now have confirmation that a number of banks, most notably Wells Fargo, specifically and disproportionately targeted blacks for high interest subprime mortgages:
As she describes it, Beth Jacobson and her fellow loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank “rode the stagecoach from hell” for a decade, systematically singling out blacks in Baltimore and suburban Maryland for high-interest subprime mortgages.
These loans, Baltimore officials have claimed in a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo, tipped hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in taxes and city services.
Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages. Another loan officer stated in an affidavit filed last week that employees had referred to blacks as “mud people” and to subprime lending as “ghetto loans.”
I don’t know what bothers me more, that this happened, or that I am so unsurprised that this happened.
And it ain’t just Wells.
Gripen Video Pr0n
SAAB’s sales pitch to India….Well, the English needs a bit of work, but at least it’s not a Bollywood musical production.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?!?!?
It appears that two “Democratic” State Senators in New York State just switched sides, and may have handed over controll of the State Senate to the ‘Phants.
There are elections in 2010, and it’s pretty clear that the Republican Gerrymandering of the State Senate had already run into its limits, but I gotta figure that the knives are really out for Governor David Paterson now, because he, and his staff, are supposed to be all over this sort of stuff.
FWIW, there are rumors that this is about anti-gay bigotry, and the fact that the Senate would pass a gay marriage bill, but this story seems to indicate that it’s just an old fashioned, and legal, political payoff, with positions promised in exchange for votes.
Attorney General Cuomo, you need to go from “no plans”, to, “Yes, I am running.”
As an aside, I think that having a federally court imposed redistricting in 2011 or so would be better than letting the Republicans Gerrymander again.
Victory for Low Power Community Radio
Harold Feld has the scoop, but the short version is that the courts upheld the FCC’s ruling to make it easier to form low power, less than 100 watt, non commercial radio.
As an aside, I don’t give to public radio, because NPR, et. al, have been vociferous opponents of this, not for technical reasons, which have always been crap, but because they don’t want competitors for their niche.
Jon Stewart is a F%$#ing Genius, Part MMMDCCCXII
Richard Bruce Cheney has been served, well done.