Remember. They HATE you.

Gotta like the Code Pinksters, “Crooks”.

We need a War Room type setup where all the dirt on what Democratic Rep and Senator has voted for what anti-people, pro-bank, pro-theft, anti-regulation bills and tie them directly to the financial and economic break-down. These people need to be targeted for removal at the next election for their seat. They must be put on notice that they are finished.

We need Moveon.org and other groups in on this. It is time to take down the criminals and assorted Blue Dogs big time. The adds that end up attacking them should be truthful but almost on the border of slanderous. They must REALLY hurt, like torpedoes beneath the waterlines of their criminal boats.

are there any in congress who, while in a leadership position, had clean hands or tried to fight the financial services industry deregulation? maybe markey?

Before the fact, ex parte? This is a house oversight committee?

Good thing I like dogs and ponies then. I’m sure after the hearing with our new heroic public servant (formerly of Allstate and Goldman, fine upstanding corporate citizens both!) we’ll all be reassured that everything is just dandy.

Federal Reserve is making a trillion dollar move. $300 Billion purchase of long term Treasuries and $750 Billion in mortgage secutities.
We will own more of the shitpile. Nightmaring for another bubble.

One doesn’t get to a ‘leadership’ position without being a fanatic fundraiser; THAT is Rahm Emmanuel’s bottomline.

It’s why I keep returning to the idea that without public financing -or some other mechanism by which money is taken out of the political equation- nothing will REALLY change.

Great work Jane,please keep it up.(And Ney’s ‘HAVA’ legislation is but another example of the corporate/lobbyist corruption in our political system).

If this is true, it deserves greater attention:

TALF: ‘the great liquidation’ begins for hedge funds and shadow banks
Posted by Edward Harrison on 17 March 2009 at 11:09 am

An article in the Financial Times caught our eye that makes plain that the TALF (Term Asset Security Program) is a bailout for the shadow banking system (HT Tom). The bailouts for the banking industry continue unabated despite a change in Administration on January 20th. The Obama Administration has topped up bailout money for Bank of America, AIG and Citigroup, three of the weakest ‘too big to fail’ institutions without putting them through a bankruptcy process.

Now, the Federal Reserve and the Administration are set to move on the TALF program which we chronicled here in three earlier posts, “TALF: A bailout if one reads the fine print,” “TALF details suggest Obama doesn’t get it,” and “A few words from a reader on TALF mechanics.”

Here is what the FT had to say:

When a group of men who got rich by buying low and selling high want to make you their partner, hang on to your wallet. That bit of financial wisdom was amply demonstrated by the 97 per cent peak to trough drop in the common stock of Fortress Investment Group on its second anniversary as a public company last month. Leverage cuts both ways, and its impact has been almost entirely bad for the alternative asset manager with the low point being a temporary halt to redemptions at its Drawbridge hedge fund late last year.

But investors looking over the detritus left by the financial crisis seem suddenly to realise that, having survived so far, Fortress is ideally suited to reap a future bonanza. They looked past a hefty net loss for the fourth quarter and bid Fortress’ shares up as much as 40 per cent yesterday on hearing its optimism about participating in the first round of the term asset-backed securities loan facility. Fortress is one of a handful of groups that retain the size and credibility to play a role in what may prove to be a high reward and relatively low-risk exercise. Fortress executives dub the coming period “the great liquidation”.

Meanwhile, much of the bleeding has stopped in Fortress’ existing business. About 82 per cent of its capital is long-term in nature with an average remaining life of 9.2 years, leaving plenty of time for mark-to- market losses to be reversed. With important debt renegotiations and redemptions mostly behind it, nasty surprises are unlikely. Management’s optimism about the future of their hedge fund business may sound like bluster after huge outflows and no inflows recently, but it is not so implausible. If it can build new funds while using the taxpayer as a low cost prime broker, new investors should be willing to let bygones be bygones.

I won’t go into specifics here because we have chronicled that in the prior three posts. The crux of the matter is the ‘Great Liquidation.’ Financial service companies in the shadow banking system like Fortress are now able to rid themselves of a good portion of their Level-3 hard-to-price, so-called toxic assets. Now, mind you, these assets must be rated AAA and will be taken on as collateral for a haircut. But, I sense the Fed will be stuck with these assets for quite some time as the loans they are giving for them are non-recourse.

What was once ‘You Walk Away‘ for home owners on their non-recourse mortgages is now you walk away for hedge funds and broker-dealers.

Quoting a good friend, this is “a huge windfall for the hedge fund industry. This whole exercise is designed as much as possible to restore the status quo ante. That’s the real scandal.”

http://www.creditwritedowns.co…..banks.html

now THAT is what i’m REALLY pissed off about.

We need a socal networking site to track these people, so the public can view the relationships.

There is a good free one called Community Builder avilable for Linux/Joomla (I like free)…

Gad!

i think that’s probably true (about who gets into leadership positions). which is why i asked the question – because it sure doesn’t look to me that there are only a few bad apples in congress. i don’t see dodd or frank or any of them representing us.

to paraphrase simon johnson – is anyone in gov willing to confront the american oligarchs?

so far, looks like the answer is mostly no (for example, in the senate, there has been only one – bernie sanders).

The problem is, a Republican would be even worse. SO what to do?

It is a class war and one side is armed with pillows and pea shooters and the other side has nuclear missiles and satellite tracking systems.

-G

still disagree that nothing can change without getting public financing of elections (although i would love to see that happen). women didn’t get the vote by voting. jim crow laws weren’t overturned by blacks voting.

not all change goes through the electoral system (although that would be nice). social movements matter too..

This is outrageous, they are beginning to fight back

GREAT!

So there are two big mysteries…who is the $6.5 million dollar AIG man?

And who pulled the cap language from the AIG bailout?

I’ll add another question: how are they related? There is just too big a there-are-no-coincidences subtext here….

Sure feels like it.

A few days ago I asked which had caused more direct economic damage to the US: al-Quaeda or AIG?
I now amend that to: al-Quaeda or Goldman Sachs?

So I guess it goes something like this – there were legal opinions and (members of) Congress were informed, so amnesty is appropriate and torturers corporate thieves are above the law.

Change you can deceive in.

Perhaps it is Goldman Sachs that runs the world. And all along I thought it was the oilmen.

they sure had a lot to do with the run up and down in oil prices.

Kanjorski’s subcommittee is tasked with looking into systemic risk within the financial system

Systemic risk is not the risk of bankrupting the financial system but the risk of exposing that the system is already bankrupt.

10 Things You Didn’t Know About AIG CEO Edward Liddy
By Debra Bell
Posted March 18, 2009
1. Edward M. Liddy was born Jan. 28, 1946, in New Brunswick, N.J.

2. Liddy graduated from Catholic University of America in 1968 and earned a master’s degree in business administration from George Washington University in 1972.

3. He worked at Ford Motor Co. before joining G. D. Searle & Co. in 1981, when Donald Rumsfeld was CEO; in 1988, he joined Sears, Roebuck & Co.

4. Liddy oversaw Allstate’s spinoff from Sears in 1995 and was named CEO of Allstate four years later. In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma cost the insurer more than $5 billion combined. Allstate quickly started an effort to scale back the coverage of homes in catastrophe-prone regions.

5. Just before Liddy took over as Allstate CEO, he told a meeting of about 200 managers that some of them would not be around in a year. Later, he ousted the finance chief and investment officers.

6. In September 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson chose Liddy to head American International Group. Five years earlier, when Paulson was running Goldman Sachs Group, he also selected Liddy to join that board.

7. In October 2008, just days after AIG received an emergency $85 billion loan from the government, about 70 executives spent a week at the St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. The group ran up a bill that included $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals, and $23,000 for the spa.

8. In November 2008, AIG froze executive salaries. Liddy agreed to an annual base salary of $1 in 2008 and 2009.

9. Liddy has served on the boards of Northwestern University and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. He is also a life trustee and former national chairman of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

10. Liddy and his wife, Marcia, have three children.

Actually there is currently a mini-run up in oil prices to $49 plus for much the same reasons. Given supply and the state of the economy, oil should be trading in the $32-34 range.

Our financial system is not reformable. As soon as Goldman or anyone else has any access to credit they go back to the same destructive speculations that got us here.

oil should be trading in the $32-34 range.

what are the current marginal production costs? … thought i’d read it was higher than that, but maybe i dreamed it?

Selise, my point is that if the ‘root system’ of the plant is diseased, then one can get the plant to look better but in the end it will die from the rot at the roots. Yes, social movement DO matter -just look at the the populist movement of the 1890’s and early 20th century- but the ‘roots’ were never cleaned of disease.

They HAVE to because China is balking at buying the bonds. They are divesting themselves of dollar holdings and investing, instead, in hard assets (minerals and extraction companies – the sort of hard assets that one needs to build up a modern society).

I read a nice analysis of this a couple days ago on one of the economic blogs I read (cannot recall which one now). Basically, it was analyzing the words out of China – and how they blew their bluff (they stated that there was no other thing they could hold onto besides US currency, but an analysis of what was stated and HOW it was stated indicated subterfuge). You cannot simply divest of dollar assets (if you are a major holder of Treasuries as is China and other countries) without causing a panicked run for the exit among all holders, so they have to back out on the sly.

They are doing so. That means the Fed has to buy its own Treasuries and print money. There will be hyperinflation at the end of the dark deflationary tunnel we are in and very likely a failure of the dollar.

Obama on CSPAN saying how he has complete confidence in Geithner. “He is making all the right moves in playing a bad hand.” As I have said before, Obama intends to go over the cliff with Summers and Geithner.

new post—>>
Bush: “I Just Bought a $3 Million Dollar House — How’s the Rest of America Doin’?”

what are the current marginal production costs? … thought i’d read it was higher than that, but maybe i dreamed it?

It varies by field. Some like Canadian tar sands are high. These are just vague memories on my part but I think those are in the $40s. Most production I think probably falls into the low $20s.

Don’t forget to Digg this post!

Selsie, here is something to peruse re ‘marginal price’

Please keep in mind that the ‘price of oil’ most quoted in the U.S. is West Texas Intermediate’(WTI); it has been lagging world pricing -e.g. Brent Sea crude- by several dollars a barrel for several months; there is something called ‘arbitrage’ that deals with buying something lower and selling essentially the same thing -though not exactly- higher.
My suspicion is that is what is occurring now with the price of oil.
And, yes, the ‘investment banks’ ARE major players in such financing.

thanks – what i was thinking about was the production cost of the most expensive source at current levels of demand. not sure that made any sense, but door bell just rang and must run. will use the google later today.

Here’s a nice post on oil that addresses oil price.

WAG here (never took zoology), but as lemmings go Obama’s unusually tall. The pack will have to find a big cliff.

if they ask nicely, Disney might “help” them

Unfortunately, the reference and associated links do NOT include the ‘heavy crude’ massive field off of Venezuela nor the recently found field off of Cuba. Both will have ‘mining costs’ higher than what is currently being spent for extraction of the ‘light,sweet’ variety BUT will provide a good deal more oil. That said, weaning off of oil is necessary and immediately needed.
And once the inflation hits that the Fed is setting everyone up for, we’ll probably once again see oil well over $100 a barrel.

The simple answer

TERM LIMITS

or voting.
or campaign finance reform.
but we have had this discussion before.

just a little bit of googling, it’s much easier to find average cost. not so easy to find marginal cost. might have a go at it later…

oh, you don’t have to convince me about the investment banks. hugh already did that last june.

thanks for the link. will have to save it for later when i can concentrate on it.

Kanjorski and Bob Ney sounds like they were lobbied by the same people who threatened various cities and states not to introduced laws requiring pre-mortgage counseling. This from the March 8 NYTimes Magazine story “All Boarded Up” about the foreclosure and abandonment crisis in Cleveland.

“But even moderately rising property values created the conditions for subprime lenders to exploit strapped homeowners. Cold-calling mortgage brokers offered refinancing deals that would let homeowners use the equity in their houses to pay off other debts. A neighbor of Brancatelli’s had medical problems and fell behind in her bills. She refinanced, then did it two more times, draining the equity in her house. “She used her house as an A.T.M.,” Brancatelli says. “In the end, they just walked away. The debt exceeded the value of the house.” In other instances, mortgage brokers would cruise neighborhoods, looking for houses with old windows or a leaning porch, something that needed fixing. They would then offer to arrange financing to pay for repairs. Many of those deals were too good to be true, and interest rates ballooned after a short period of low payments. Suddenly burdened with debt, people began to lose homes they had owned free and clear.

As early as 2000, a handful of public officials led by the county treasurer, Jim Rokakis, went to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and pleaded with it to take some action. In 2002, the city passed an ordinance meant to discourage predatory lending by, among other things, requiring prospective borrowers to get premortgage counseling. In response, the banking industry threatened to stop making loans in the city and then lobbied state legislators to prohibit cities in Ohio from imposing local antipredatory lending laws.

In the ensuing years, the city’s real estate was transformed into an Alice-in-Wonderland-like landscape. Local officials began keeping track of foreclosed homes by placing red dots on large wall maps. Some corners of the map, like Slavic Village, are now so packed with red dots they look like puddles of blood.”

Term limits simply gets a new set in who are equally susceptible to the lobbyists, if not more so. States with term limits still have the same issues. Look at California.