Year: 2010

What a Whiny Bitch!!

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Blah, blah, blah!

Barack Obama once again, railing against the Democratic Party, and throwing in a couple of Republican memes in the process.

He slams FDR once again, and lies about he gets the facts wrong about the origins of Social Security and Medicare.

Seriously, he sounds like a Republican, and given his penchant of consistently attempting to find the most retrograde policies consistent with being a Democrat, I’ve come to conclusion, that he’s as much of a member of the Democratic Party as Vladimir Putin.

Assange Jailed

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Note that he has not been charged, and the warrant is for an interview, a British magistrate has ordered Julian Assange held without bail after he turned himself in voluntarily.

Tell me that the fix is not in here.

Of course, the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, have his ITEOD* file, and some number probably greater than 10 people have the code to decrypt those unredacted files has got to give the people pursuing him cause to pause.

*In The Event Of Death.

And Here’s Another Shocker from Barack Obama

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It turns out that his pay freeze proposal will cripple the staffing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said this week that exceptions may have to be made to President Barack Obama’s proposed pay freeze in order to effectively implement the Wall Street reform bill.

………

Frank said on Thursday he would support providing exemptions to the pay freeze if regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CTFC), can show they are needed to hire the appropriate talent.

………

In July, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro announced that her agency intends to hire 374 new employees in 2011. She also indicated that to meet the requirements set out in the Dodd-Frank bill, the agency will need to hire up to 800 staff in total.

Mr. Frank, you are being naive. The fact that the pay freeze cripples agencies that regulate the big banks is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Surely, after all he has done to protect the big banks, you can’t think that he will allow the regulatory agencies to staff up with competent and motivated people to actually reign them in?

Silly Congressman, don’t you know that laws are for whistle-blowers, not bankers!

It is Worse Than a Crime, It Is A Mistake

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Well, the White House completely caved on tax breaks.
What the Republicans got:

  • A 2-year extension to all the tax cuts, including the tax cuts for those making more than a $¼ million a year.
  • Setting a new exemption on the inheritance tax at $5 million.
  • Dropping the tax rate on the inheritance tax at 35%.

What Obama got:

  • A 13 month extension to emergency unemployment benefits.
    • Which means that Republicans will kill extended unemployment benefits in January 2012, putting the economy in a tail spin as the presidential election rolls around.
  • A 1-year 2% holiday in Social Security, which will provide a family earning $50K about $1K.
    • The difference is supplied from the treasury, so it does not hit the trust fund, and this is probably the best tax cut for boosting the economy.
  • Continuation of the college tuition tax credit.
    • Which, of course gets taken back out by the financial aid department, which makes awards on the basis to pay.

It’s a remarkably one sided agreement, and Barack Obama followed this up with a lie:

Mr. Obama said he was insisting on a temporary deal on the tax rates for high earners and wealthy estates on the belief that he would ultimately prevail.

“I’m confident,” Mr. Obama said, “that as we make tough choices about bringing our deficit down, as I engage in a conversation with the American people about the hard choices we’re going to have to make to secure our future and our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future, it will become apparent that we cannot afford to extend those tax cuts any longer.”

Let’s be clear, Barack Obama has no intention whatsoever to raise taxes on the rich or on the inheritance of drooling rich heirs.

He’s a pimps harder for the well off than Bill Clinton ever did, and it should be noted that Clinton did it before the rich ratf%$#s on Wall Street blew up our economy.

When one looks at what Obama has done, one can only conclude that we got sold a bill of goods by a Blue Dog.

If he had even the smallest bit of a progressive bent, he would have bent.

He sells out to Republicans because he supports most of their policies.

God Help Me, I Agree With Joe Lieberman

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Yes, the sanctimonious rat-fink is saying that the Senate should postpone its adjournment to make sure that there is time to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) wants the Senate to stay in session until it’s passed legislation to do away with the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Lieberman, a key Senate proponent of repealing the military’s ban on openly gay or lesbian members, doesn’t want the chamber to adjourn until it’s acted on a defense authorization bill that contains a provision to do away with the policy.

Note that Lieberman has been a stronger advocate of repeal than either Barack “Fierce Advocate” Obama or Harry Reid.

For once, we have a bunch of wankers in the room, and Lieberman isn’t one.

And While We Are Talking About People Upset with Obama

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At Crooks and Liar, they have thrown in the towel:

That does it. Obama needs to face a strong primary challenger. And no, I don’t care if it costs the Democrats the White House in 2012. Obama had a golden opportunity to have an actual victory — the first he’s had since he killed that fly back in 2009 — and he’s flushing it down the crapper. We cannot have this guy representing us anymore. He is too weak to lead.

While Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine and the chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, is saying that we need a strong primary challenge from the left to save Obama from himself:

But there is a real way to save the Obama presidency: by challenging him in the 2012 presidential primaries with a candidate who would unequivocally commit to a well-defined progressive agenda and contrast it with the Obama administration’s policies. Such a candidacy would be pooh-poohed by the media, but if it gathered enough popular support – as is likely given the level of alienation among many who were the backbone of Obama’s 2008 success – this campaign would pressure Obama toward much more progressive positions and make him a more viable 2012 candidate. Far from weakening his chances for reelection, this kind of progressive primary challenge could save Obama if he moves in the desired direction. And if he holds firm to his current track, he’s a goner anyway.

Note that both of these comments were before Obama’s sellout this evening.

Friday’s Pathetic Job Numbers

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Well, it turns out that the ADP estimate was wrong, and the job creation numbers were absolutely pathetic, there were only 39,000 jobs created in November, somewhere around 100K less than is needed to account for growth in the labor market, the unemployment rate went up 0.2% to 9.8%.

And in case you are wondering, that increase in unemployment is not an artifact of the discouraged looking for work, because there was no increase in the labor participation rate, which means that we just had a really bad month.

One month does not a double dip make, but when you realize that this is juxtaposed with the stimulus money tapering down, it is an issue of concern.

Then again, my anecdotal data, job shops calling me, is pretty strong, so YMMV.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!! (on Saturday)

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There were no failures of FDA insured institutions, so the count remains at 149, but we did see a credit union closing:

  1. Constitution Corporate Federal Credit Union, Wallingford, CT

My bad, I am a couple of weeks late on this, the credit union was actually closed on November 19, so I am 2 weeks late.  Here is the full NCUA list

This is the longest stretch so far this year, 2 weeks, without a bank or credit union closure, just so you know.

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):

I would note that are now at the point where the utility of the least squares trendline is diminishing, but I’m keeping it here for historical purposes.

I’m With Jane Hamsher on This

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Barack “I suck up to Wall Street Like 1000 Hoover vacuum cleaners” Obama is not folding on tax cuts for the hyper-rich, he wanted them to keep their tax cuts all along:

It’s been clear for some time that President Obama made the political calculation that he does not want any of the Bush tax cuts to expire. He doesn’t want to be the guy in 2012 running for President on having “raised taxes during a time of recession.”
But the President also doesn’t want the political blowback of angering people who cheered him on the campaign trail when he promised to let the tax cuts expire. And so rather than just come out and just say that, he’s been actively trying to kill a Chuck Schumer deal to keep them from expiring on income of more than $1 million a year. It was a plan that put the GOP in an awkward position, and had thrown them off message in recent days — hard to be the people fighting for the 315,000 families who fall into that category over the 2 million set to lose their unemployment benefits by the end of the year.

The President argued against the Schumer deal, we are told, because he was concerned about “the cost [to the deficit] and the risk of redefining the middle class as those making over [should read under] one million.”

The President’s argument is, of course, pure crap.

I think that when we look at Barack Obama’s performance on issues of real reform, it’s clear that he falls short of his rhetoric because he does not want real reform.

Financial reform was mostly smoke and mirrors, with small steps, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, being driven by a need to avoid totally alienating his base in 2012.

The same goes for taxes, or for the give-away to health insurers that is laughably called healthcare reform.

Go read the rest.

Don’t Audit the Fed

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Waterboard their lily white flabby asses until they release the data that they are required to!

Even though the (weak tea) Dodd-Frank financial reform bill requires the Federal Reserve to release data on the collateral that they received for loans during the crises, the “sh%$pile for cash” program, so that people can see the risks that they took, the Fed is withholding this data:

The Federal Reserve withheld details on individual securities pledged as collateral by recipients of $885 billion in central bank loans, denying taxpayers a measure of the risks they faced from its emergency aid.

The central bank yesterday released data on 21,000 transactions from $3.3 trillion in emergency lending to stem the financial crisis. July’s Dodd-Frank law required the Fed to disclose the names of borrowers, the size and interest rates of loans, and “information identifying the types and amounts of collateral pledged or assets transferred.”

What is going on here is that the Fed is trying to cover its ass, and the only question is whether what they did was merely myopic, or actually illegal.

My money is on the latter.

H/t Yves Smith.

The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly

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In Nigeria, where they intend to charge Dick Cheney for bribery for his activities as head of Halliburton:

Nigeria will file charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies including Halliburton Co. over a $180 million bribery scandal, a prosecutor at the anti-graft agency said.

Indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court “in the next three days,” Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in an interview today at his office in Abuja, the capital. An arrest warrant for Cheney “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” the world’s biggest international police organization, he said.

And the Wikileaks tapes reveal that the Obama administration went hammers and tongs against Spanish judicial investigations of torture by Bush administration officials.

So it appears that the rich and powerful evil-doers are more likely to be prosecuted in Nigeria, and more likely to be protected in the United States.

H/t emptywheel.

Economics Update

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It’s jobless Thursday, and unemployment rose, but it remains below the 450,000 range that I have been harping on,with new claims rising by 26,000 to 436,000, the 4-week moving average falling by 5,750 to 431,000, continuing claims rising by 53,000 4.27 million, and extended benefits rising by 377,000 to 8,91 million.

Truth be told, since this is reporting from a short week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m not sure if it means much.

In real estate, pending sales for existing homes jumped by 10% in October, which is surprisingly good news, though it may not translate in to quite so many closing, since mortgage rates are rising, which may complicate the life of your average home buyer.

Another Day, Another Sellout by an Obama Flunky

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This time, it’s FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski making a proposal that would place a fig leaf on the elimination of net neutrality.

There are a number of problems:

  • It does not cover wireless, except for vague language.
  • Paid priority is acceptable so long as it is not “unjust and unreasonable,” which allows Comcast to gig over the internet video to prop up its cable business.
  • It is likely not legal, since the court of appeals has already said that the FCC has little or no authority to regulate to regulate Title I (information services), and the plan refuses to reclassify the services as Title II (communication services), where there is explicit statutory authority.
  • How actual infractions would be handled are unclear.

I would also point you at comments by the President of Public Knowledge, and would further note that PK, as well as Harld Feld’s commentary on Wetmachine are probably good starting points for developments.

The FCC meeting will be on December 21, and the Republicans on the board, 2 of the 5, have already announced that they will oppose any regulation, so it’s possible that Genachowski will have to move in the consumer’s direction to deal with his more consumer friendly board members.

Finally, Some Competence

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The House just passed the “Democratic version” of the tax cut extension, with the support of only 3 Republicans, and the opposition of of 20 mostly Blue Dog and mostly lame duck Democrats.

I don’t expect to make it through the Senate, but this is both good politics and good policy.

What is interesting is the parliamentary maneuver used to get it passed by a simple majority.

Normally, you need a ⅔ majority vote in the House to pass the bill without the possibility of a motion to recommit, basically a motion to amend and send back to the originating committee, and the Republicans always come up with stuff that will make weak kneed Democrats vote with them, typically having to do with sex offenders, or in this case, Wall Street tax cuts to make the Blue Dog/New Dem squishes tremble.

Well, Nancy Pelosi found a work around:

Brace yourself for some procedural jargon: Dems once believed they were faced with two mixed options for holding this vote. The first was to hold an up-or-down vote under the normal rules. But that would give Republicans the opportunity to introduce what’s known as a motion to recommit — a procedural right of the minority that would have allowed them to tack an extension of tax cuts for high-income earners on to the legislation.

The second option — suspending the rules — would have foreclosed on that right, but would have required a two-thirds majority of the House for passage: 290 votes, an impossible hurdle.

But Democrats figured out a way to avoid this. They’re attaching their tax cut plan as an amendment to a separate bill [the Airport and Airway Extension Act, to wit]. That legislation already passed the House, and has just been returned from the Senate. The rules say it can’t be recommitted. So the GOP’s hands are tied.

You can blame Obama for the election debacle. You can blame Harry Reid. Don’t blame Nancy Pelosi.

She knows what she has to do, and she does it.

Democrats were savaged because they were perceived as being unable to deliver, but Nancy Pelosi was not a part of that problem, she was just the victim.

We are Unbelievably Screwed

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“March of 2000, of course, was the peak of the internet bubble.”

Small investors are holding less cash than at any time since March 2000.

This means that small investors are pulling money out of bank accounts, where returns are low, but the accounts are guaranteed, and putting the money in the stock market seeking greater returns.

Time for another crash in the market, because as a group, small investors are the idiots who enter the market just before they run out of idiots.

Person writing this, Joe Weisenthal, clearly thinks so too, or he would not have referenced the dotbomb bust in the last line of the article (reproduced as a caption to the chart pr0n).