Author: Brian

Leave ’em alone. They don’t need oversight. They’re just playing under Bush.

Finger Pointing
The NYTimes somewhat timidly reports that economists are putting the blame for Wall Street’s errors on poor oversight in general and Bush in particular.

And while economists and other experts say there are plenty of culprits — Democrats and Republicans in Congress, the Federal Reserve, an overzealous home-lending industry, banks and also Mr. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton — they do agree that the Bush administration bears part of the blame.

These experts, from both political parties, say Mr. Bush’s early personnel choices and overarching antipathy toward regulation created a climate, that, if it did not set off the turmoil, almost certainly aggravated it.

The president’s first two Treasury secretaries, for instance, lacked the kind of Wall Street expertise that might have helped them raise red flags about the use of complex financial instruments that are at the heart of the crisis.

To his credit, Mr. Bush accurately foresaw the danger posed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and began calling as early as 2002 for greater regulation. But experts say the administration could have done even more to curb excesses in the housing market, and much more to police Wall Street, which transmitted those problems around the world.

Vincent R. Reinhart, a former Federal Reserve economist now at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute here, said that, in retrospect, “it would have helped for the Bush administration to empower the folks at Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the comptroller of the currency and the F.D.I.C.” — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — “to look at these issues more closely.”

He said it would also have helped “for Congress to have held hearings.”

Instead, voices inside the administration for tougher policing of Wall Street found themselves with few supporters.

“I believe that the president is exhausted and the vice president has been marginalized, and what you now have is the Washington interests . . . dominating the administration,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said.

‘Washington Interests’ running the U.S.A.?
Wot? Send me your passport!
Do I hafta spell out what citizenship is…?
Fix it, America.
In America’s interest.

Who’s da rational now?

Joining the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, members of the APA have voted “No” to participation of its members at interrogation sites “…where it believes international law is being violated,”

Breaking with protocol established more than fifty years ago, the Executive Director of the United Nations Global Development Programme said in a speech at the Geneva Parity Council today, “It is time for economic policy directors to wake up, catch up and keep going with technological development programs while the U.S.A. encounters its first period of financial difficulty since the 1930s and World War II.

“Americans are not stopping and will not be down for long. The USA will restart quickly and repeat its domination of global markets if aligned and non-aligned member nations fail to implement competitive policy framework as rapidly as possible.

“Global competitors must not be confused about the American intention to penetrate market opportunity,” he said. “For example, examine what the United States has introduced to the marketplace even as the world is waiting for the outcome of the recent turmoil in financial exchange markets.”

Corru-Skeletal Technology is top engineering that other nations have failed to develop!

Thermo-Exhaust Technology is new and profitable already.

Why are so many nations slow to capture new technology?

Steam Exhaust Port patents reveal again that American technology is the envy of the world.

Where are global leaders in this new world economy?

Boxtopper Technology is arriving quickly and will conquer the European, Oceania and Asia markets quickly if policy and business leaders fail to pay attention to American technology innovation as aggressive exports are driven by the collapsing value of the dollar.

The U.N. Director added, “The threat of American technology is a threat to the balance of payments in every nation.”

Published today, the Global Export Competitive Index from the UN Council of Economic Parity revealed that member nations are encouraged to pay serious attention to undiscovered economic opportunity. If competitor regions fail to leverage the capital frontier after the ‘Bush Dilemma’, the sustained innovation offered by inventors and developers in the USA will quickly recover to dominate the fiscal horizon.

Transportation Security Administration officials renamed the TSA Operations Center to ‘The Freedom Center’ at a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by the State Department, Pentagon and Airport Security Contractors.

The Bush Administration drew fire from critics noting the White House Terror Security Directive issued to hub and connecting airports from the TSA Freedom Center are far too enjoyable for the American flying public.

Accountability for financial failure and negligence should fall on legislators, board rooms and individuals rather than policies and packaging.

As brigands stretch regulatory, fiduciary and ethical restraints beyond sensibility, the blame is too often placed on inanimate systems and procedures such as Derivatives or Swaps.

It’s not enough to escape liability under stupidity, greed or human nature repeating that “players in the Wall Street crisis did not fully understand the investments their own firms were making” because this is the indictment precisely.

Seriously now, because Democracy is History!

If financial behemoths like AIG are too large and/or too interconnected to fail but not too smart to get themselves into situations where they need to be bailed out, then what is the case for letting private firms engage in such kinds of activities in the first place?

Sadly without adequately naming names, Metafilter has posted a few explanations about the collapse of AIG:

How AIG fell apart is a good article giving an overview of Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) and the role they played in AIG’s struggle. CDS issues are a crisis that quite a few saw coming just a few months ago and one that was discussed here then, although AIG was thought be a special “safe” case among CDS issuers.

Indeed it now seems that AIG’s particular problem was that it had failed to hedge the CDSs they issued with CDSs acquired from other institutions, presumably on the premise that they were insuring assets too safe to fail.

Also included the $85B bridge loan made to AIG might not be enough to save the insurer.

Bank governors worldwide have made ready $200 billion for the struggling bank sector in only a few days while, without squeezing his lauded private sector friends further, the Bush Administration is tapping taxpayers for approximately $600 billion.

There are names and addresses of laissez-faire regulators asleep at the wheel while padding their lobbyist and donor allies. Many are on a ballot.

Hoist them on their petard and choose them away.

[wiktionary] He has no one to blame but himself, ‘hoisted by his own petard’.

False arrest is a fundamental breach of the Constitution of the United States of America. Freedom of Assembly is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution of the United States of America. Then soon, those that gave the orders to arrest groups of citizens during the Republican Convention will be found guilty.

This statement accompanies the video of the mass arrest of utterly peaceful concert goers at their picnic on Labor Day, the opening day of the Republican Convention. The Service Employees International Union is an organization of more than 2 million members.

BURIED TAPE REVEALS USE OF FORCE AND AN UNWARRANTED MASS ARREST OF BYSTANDERS DURING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (September 18, 2008) Video released today shows the indiscriminate arrest of a crowd of two hundred at the waterfront across from a concert on Harriet Island Regional Park during this month’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The video includes multiple angles of the event as well as an interview with the cameraman who buried his footage and was one of almost two hundred people arrested for rioting without probable cause.

More than eight hundred people were arrested in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention. This video shows that at least twenty percent of the eight hundred plus arrested were seized without due cause.

Oh, to be waxing nostalgic to our America just eight years ago.

Helping needy banks costly, says Administration

President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, acknowledged that the program will put a “significant amount of taxpayers’ money on the line.”

The administration is asking Congress to give it sweeping new powers to execute the plan – the biggest proposed government intervention in financial markets since the Great Depression, a plan that costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. [Bush News Promo]

Sweeping powers? Sounds good to me.

It’s time we swept out the puffery of false patriotism such as renaming TSA’s ops building the Freedom Center.

It’s time we aimed at the tabloid throat of Republican election engineering.

It’s time to refuse the anarchists of Evangelical Greed.

Just eight years ago, our nation had nearly a trillion dollar surplus. Before Bush, the Congressional Budget Office 2001 projection for the following ten years accumulated $5.6 trillion surplus for 2002-2011.

How has our SURPLUS become a DEFICIT?
One, philandering corporate welfare.
Two, upper bracket tax cuts.
Three, costly ridiculous security.
Four, adventurous war.

The Bank Health Care Plan?
Where is +$600 billion for this financial system bailout coming from? Obama says, “So let me get this straight. Run health care like they’ve been running Wall Street?”

Paul Krugman at the NYTimes warns, “You might want to be seated before reading this. Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

Grow up and weep, America.

Go ahead.

Elect Sarah Palin because she’s a woman.

Elect John McCain because he’s old.

Spain’s reputable Cadena SER radio interviewed McCain:

Sir. Would you sit down with Raul Castro of Cuba?

“Certainly not!”

Sir. Would John McCain sit down with Evo Morales of Bolivia?

“Certainly not!”

Would you sit down with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela?

“Certainly not! I’ll stand firm against our enemies.”

Mr. McCain. Let’s shift to Spain, would you invite President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero [wiki] to meet with you in the White House?

[I] won’t promise, but Latin America is important.

McCain added he’ll work with anyone who cooperates with the U.S.A., “tenga el color que tenga”, “whatever his color.”

John McCain thinks Spain is a rogue state in South America. Of course he does!

Judge for yourself.
via FP Passport:

Interviewer: Let’s talk about Spain. If you are elected president, would you be willing to invite President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?

McCain: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are our friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion. And by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan and I intend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can, of those leaders to the White House.

Interviewer: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the president itself?

McCain: I don’t…you know, honestly I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities but I can assure you, I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America. I know how to do both.

Interviewer: So you have to see if he’s willing to meet with you, or you’ll be able to do it in the White House?

McCain: Again, I don’t…all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not and that’s judged on basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.

Interviewer: Okay, but what about Europe? I’m talking about the president of Spain.

McCain: What about me, what?

Interviewer: Are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?

McCain: I’m willing to meet with any leader that’s dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy, and freedom and I will stand up to those that do not.

A Canadian steps in to write a smart, candid letter to Americans.

And I’m here to tell them, based on my own memories of the Trudeau years, that hope might just be enough, as long as you’re willing to fill in the blanks and work for it. I remember that irrational but incredibly powerful feeling that Canada was capable of being a “Just Society.”

I still think that, even after the Harper years, and Canada’s social politics still command respect from any American who actually knows anything about our proud history of liberal social policy.

I tell my American friends that they can have their own Trudeau, his name is Obama, and that they have to fight for what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now” in the face of what I call “the false potency of No.”

“From the first moment a woman dared to speak that hope – dared to believe that the American Dream was meant for her too – ordinary women have taken on extraordinary odds to give their daughters the chance for something else; for a life more equal, more free, and filled with more opportunity than they ever had. In so many ways we have succeeded, but in so many areas we have much work left to do.” – Barack Obama

Views and campaign plank here.

Does evil exist? Do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?

OBAMA: Evil does exist. I mean, I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil, sadly, on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children. I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely, and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, now, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God’s task, but we can be soldiers in that process, and we can confront it when we see it.

Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for to us have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, because a lot of evil’s been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

In the name of good.

OBAMA: In the name of good, and I think, you know, one thing that’s very important is having some humility in recognizing that just because we think that our intentions are good, doesn’t always mean that we’re going to be doing good.

Should we ignore it, negotiate it with it, contain it or defeat it?

MCCAIN: Defeat it. A couple of points. One, if I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that. And I know how to do that. I will get that done. (APPLAUSE).

Of course, evil must be defeated.

Read this twice.

OBAMA: Evil does exist. I mean, I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil, sadly, on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children. I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely, and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, now, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God’s task, but we can be soldiers in that process, and we can confront it when we see it.

Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for to us have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, because a lot of evil’s been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

thoughts along the way from plankton to pulsar…

To live with life an ally
and all the earth its winking crew
and all the heavens supervise.
To live life with joy
which holds a heart toward itself
and joy which lends this heart to friends.
To live an ethical life in an ethical land,
put upon merely by our mercy,
not put upon by guile
nor sticks of rage,
nor ruled by the weakest of the weak: Those hidden in the grandstand of corruption.
Now that’s living!

              We walk toward the infinite in such a tiny frame
         as if atop a dune of slipping sand
              seldom noticing the miracle of our balance.

define:appropriate – let no man  appropriate the use  of a common benefit

“A man’s house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential — there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster…”

Mark Twain

Birth is many days

September is the month of birth of Janet K. Hayes. She passed away in 2004 after eight years dealing with cancer, dealing with it. Twenty one days later I wrote this.

21 Days

These are not easy feelings.
Losing you.
Gone.
Gone is not a good thing.
Not to be pendantic and afraid but,
Gone is a big word.
Good living is hard to come by.
It’s not easy as so many say.
Good living is not easy to achieve.
It’s difficult.
Can I do it again from here?
Gone is a big word.
Am I condemned now?
Losing you.
Without you.
Gone.
Gone is not a good thing.
Gone is a big word.
The bottom of black.
Gone is a big word.
Chance.
Chance is a lesser word.
Chance brought me.
Takes me.
Leaves me.
What a terrible thing.
Chance.
Gone is a big word.
I want to drive north. The town to buy a shirt at the best shirt shop. Robe that naughty body in voices. I choose. I select. I am.
Fate.
Fate is not a thing for thinking. Fate is worn. Like a shirt.
Gone is a big word.
I spent three hours last night. One hour on the beach tossing balls to Lord Barkeley. Lowest tide. Brightest moon. Weeping. Marine breeze.
Wet.
One hour thumbing through one hundred photographs in our album of life.
Wet in tears.
One hour blank and void and crowing.
Drowned.
These infinite things are the first memories of the rest of my life.
Gone.
Gone is a big word.
Tonight I said to myself, “Self….”
I’ve always liked that.

My gosh, people, a Vice President of the United States of America is carrying ‘the briefcase’.

How much Armageddon are you praying for?

Where is Sarah going to show us foreign policy experience? Not to the Naval Academy. Not to Carlisle. Not even to the offices of the National Review.

She’s off to wave a banner in a protest against Iran!

Palin plans to visit UN and join protest of Iran

“As for foreign policy, you know, I think that I am prepared,” she said at a town-hall-style meeting with McCain. “And I know that on Jan. 20, if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president, certainly we’ll be ready. I’ll be ready. I have that confidence. I have that readiness. And if you want specifics with specific policy, or countries, go ahead and you can ask me. You can even play stump the candidate, if you want to.

Sarah Palin, a believer and advocate of Israel, will speak at the rally. We will have signs for you to pick up on-site as a demonstration of support that will be seen by the leaders of the nations coming to the UN, and by the world as they watch on the news. Rarely do we have such a strategic opportunity to show the world that we believe in God’s word, and are willing to place our time and our money on the line to be present and counted on the side of Israel!

…as they watch on the news
…money on the line
…in God’s word

Her frontispiece says, “Governor Palin believes that the danger of a nuclear Iran is greater than party or politics,” said the spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt. “She hopes that all parties can rally together in opposition to this grave threat.”

I can see it now.
Fifty major cities. Five hundred thousand in the streets. Signs waving. Chants. Angry pods of young men. Women weeping over the beaten. Sarah’s prayer march goes off without a hitch.

Where’s Jimmy Carter when you need him? He’s got some experience along these lines.

For one high one day we put ’em in jail for life, I thought today. For destroying millions of families, they don’t come to a committee.

McCain’s Enron Loophole? The S&L Crisis? The Dot Bomb? Help me out here.

Earlier, Stupidity And Greed Slid To Thieving, I posted “When the crisis subsides, an inquiry is needed.”

When this saga is through there should be a tribunal of inquiry. Then we can be told what needs mending, and whom to take out and shoot.

There is so much ahead. Very much ahead. Look at The Big Picture.

Should we hold executives accountable?

Of course we should. One thing that is becoming overtly clear throughout this entire debacle is that the leadership of these banks is utterly incompetent.

We’re talking about a handful of the highest paid executives who not only presided over money losing corporations (which alone should be grounds for termination without a parachute), but these halfwits presided over the rapid, unglamorous *deaths* of their corporations and had no knowledge that they were doing so until it was far too late.

the-end-of-american-capitalism-as-we-knew-it
At the venerable Financial Times, William Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics, indicts American executive management:

If financial behemoths like AIG are too large and/or too interconnected to fail but not too smart to get themselves into situations where they need to be bailed out, then what is the case for letting private firms engage in such kinds of activities in the first place?

The international press is on fire. Paper after paper is indicting the USA. Headlines in this country are muckraking more and more. Woodward says, Bush was strutting in the White House, “We’re going to save the world for Democracy,” but he’s not strutting anymore.

Nothing like it in my lifetime. We’ll see if it’s just taking opportunity during a poor crisis. If it lasts a month or two, I’d say history has already happened. Just one example:

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave
the word
Now in the morning I sleep
alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

The leverage party’s over for the masters of the universe. Shed a tear. When you trade pieces of paper for other pieces of paper instead of trading them for real things, one day someone wakes up and realizes the paper’s worth nothing. And Lehman Brothers, after 158 years, has gone poof in the night.

We’re witnessing the passing of more than a venerable firm.

We’re seeing the death of a culture.

Obama said, [AP] “This is not a time for fear and it’s not a time for panic. In the next 47 days you can fire the whole trickle-down, on-your-own, look-the-other way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path.”

[International Herald Tribune] Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the Second World War.

But now American legal influence is waning.

Of course it is.

Rich vs Poor?
No.
False vs True.

Somehow I clicked to this link.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/john-mccain-end.html

Then it dawned on me.
Wow. These are top notch comments.
Rich vs Poor,
no,
False vs True.

A post to the choir from the voice of the choir, Barbra Streisand.

Meet The REAL John McCain

The media has labeled John McCain a “moderate maverick” and a reformer. That moniker could not be more misrepresentative of the core values of the current Republican candidate running for President. The real John McCain has a history of voting against women, veterans, education and the preservation of our civil liberties, in addition to abstaining completely from voting to safeguard our environment in 2007. McCain stated in January of 2008 at the March of Life in Washington DC, “If I am fortunate enough to be elected as the next President of the United States, I pledge to you to be a loyal and unswerving friend of the right to life movement.” McCain also pledged to appoint judges in the mold of conservatives John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who he feels are “jurists of the highest caliber.” And the much revered war hero was 1 of only 13 Republicans to vote against benefits for veterans, preferring to give tax cuts to the rich, rather than provide veterans with adequate healthcare.

In 2000, George W. Bush campaigned as the “compassionate conservative” and pundits praised him as the anti-elite cowboy you’d want to share a beer with. As our country spirals into a recession, as gas prices climb past $4.00 a gallon, as banks foreclose on families’ homes, as the middle class disappears and more Americans become trapped in poverty, five major oil companies reported record breaking profits so far this year, with Exxon-Mobile making a $40.6 billion windfall alone. These last eight years under the ‘compassionate’ Bush Administration, the rich have become richer at the expense of hardworking Americans. In November, the public can’t allow themselves to be duped again. The real John McCain is anything but a “moderate maverick.” Rather, he is just another deeply conservative Republican looking to continue the work of the Bush Administration…and if you want proof, just look at his voting record.

Well?
Got one better?

“But it sounds like he got a little carried away, because yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s President, he’ll take on the – quote – “ol’ boys network” in Washington. I am not making this up. This is someone who’s been in Congress for twenty-six years – who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign – and now he tells us that he’s the one who will take on the ol’ boy network. The ol’ boy network? In the McCain campaign, that’s called a staff meeting.“

What do they call a McCain staff meeting? The ol’ boy network.
What do the call McCain’s ol’ boy network? A staff meeting.

McCain Attacks Wall Street Greed
83 Wall Street Lobbyists Run His Campaign

Obama’s video at DemWatch
Full text of speech here.

I’m so not stunned.

Sarh Palin linked electoral success to prayer of Witch Hunter.

The pastor Sarah Palin says helped her to become Governor of Alaska founded his ministry with a witchhunt against a woman he accused of causing car accidents through demonic spells.

Before running for governor, Mrs Palin described how Muthee ‘laid his hands’ on her at one of at least 10 visits to Sarah’s Wasilla Assembly of God church.

In footage of her speech, she is seen saying: “As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he’s so bold. And he was praying “Lord make a way, Lord make a way.”

The Christian Science Monitor reports Muthee launched six months of fervent prayer to identify the “source of the witchcraft”, a local woman called Mama Jane who ran the Emmanuel Clinic.

Her alleged involvement in fortune-telling and the fact that she lived near the site of a number of fatal car accidents led Pastor Muthee to publicly declare her a witch responsible for the town’s ills.

Given the financial crisis, Taliban Palin puts an entirely new spin on Voodoonomics. The witch hunter who “prayed over” Sarah to help her become governor is invited back to Wasilla too.

Look, any winged readers, spiritual longing is part of humanity, but our garden is rot if folks hear inner thunders and torch other folks out of town.

Our government is rot if it’s a church, for then we have no civil ground. Learn your lessons. Sarah Palin’s beliefs are legitimate because we are free, but illegitimate if near the command of America.

My gosh, people, a Vice President of the United States of America is carrying ‘the briefcase’. How much Armageddon are you praying for?

When chaos seeks relief:

“Nothing that is being done here is against God’s law,” the voice said.

The green hoods appeared busy, and one of them stood up. He held the man’s severed right hand in the air, displaying it for the crowd. He was holding it up by its middle finger, moving in a semicircle so everyone could see. The handicapped and the women. Then he pulled his hood back, revealing his face, and he took a breath. He tossed the hand into the grass and gave a little shrug. I couldn’t tell if the pickpocket had been given any sort of anesthesia. He wasn’t screaming.

NYTimes, The Forever War
tip to noLadder