Hi there. Thanks for having me.

Les, Welcome back to the Lake.

Cynthia, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

My pleasure. Look forward to a hot discussion.

Good afternoon and welcome to FDL Les.

I have not had a chance to read your book but do have a question. What was the genesis of your book? Was there any specific crooked act by Wall St or the Banksters that started it or was it just an overall view that things weren’t as good as the PR from Wall St?

Les, Thank you for stopping in today. For our readers, what brought you to write this book? What one incident got your attention?

I got into this subject almost by accident. I live in a town with a lot of bankers and I thought I might be able to write about what they did so that all of us would be more financially literate. Then in the middle of thinking about that all hell broke lose on Wall Street. I realized that if we didn’t know more we’d lose our citizenship since financial stuff was taking over the discourse. The book came out of that desire and concern.

The first incident that got my attention was the rip-off of Narvik, Norway. Our family had been to Norway several times and I was sensitive to its desire to provide good social services. That town bought CDOs and lost millions of dollars. But no one could explain what it bought and why it crashed. That got my attention.

As a technical note, there is a “Reply” button in the lower right corner of each comment. When you are replying to a specific comment, just click the associated “Reply” and the system automagically pre-fills the comment number and commenter name to whom you are replying. That makes it easier for everyone to follow the “conversation.”

I could find nothing in any source that could explain what collateralized debt obligations were and why they were so dangerous or why anyone in their right mind would buy them. So I jumped into the subject…..and at first I got nowhere… I actually gave up after a while. Finally, I caught on but it took some doing.

sorry…will do

Thanks for doing this Les, Cynthia and Bev. As I was reading the intro, well done, … but I was feeling my anger go right to the top of the flagpole having spent my life on the bottom “tranche” … trench.

I remember when I was told long ago my 401K was being converted to “investment” and feeling some outrage, like shouldn’t that be an option or something?

I need to read this book and will. My eyes glaze over and I am so child-like in terms of finances … like many around economists.. “take care of my little brain.” And they did… took care of our wallets, too.

And the “players” seem to have no accountability still. Oy vey.

I really, really tried hard to write a book that everyone could understand and stay with. It’s critical that we find a way to enter this financial debate. At the moment the bankers are again looting the store and most of us are still oblivious.

I live in a town with a lot of bankers and I thought I might be able to write about what they did so that all of us would be more financially literate.

I hope your neighbors are not the type that whine to the NY Times about how rough it is trying to get by on $500K and how they’ve had to make the choice between the nanny and the gardener.

The Rip off of Norway – was this the group that called themselves the Turks?
What did they do that was different / same as the US financial failure?

Hi I have not read the book I’m wondering if anyone is going to look into KBR getting nobid contracts to electrify the showers for our troops. Also why with the wait for armored vehicles and bullet proof vests past the deadline to deliver they still got paid.

No;. Actually, they are pretty shocked by what happened. They know the system collapsed. We don’t agree about how to fix it but they know we were at the verge of another Great Depression.

Hi, sorry I’m late had teenager issues technical difficulties at my end.

Les, have you heard the news? Sports Illustrated is reporting that you can now –wait for it–buy insurance on your fantasy football picks, in case a player gets injured or something.

Your analogy to synthetic credit default obligations is now complete!

Hi there Mr. Leopold, and thanks for visiting with us. How could Congress or the Administration go about eliminating derivitives, especially synthetic/naked swaps, and how many modalities could be stopped? What impact would that have on stability of the system?

How do we get our money back?

Let me step back and give you the big picture analysis. This crash happened because of the failure of a grand experiment starting in the mid-1970s. Policy and academics thought we had to get away from the New Deal controls and unleash the private sector. So they deregulated finance and changed the tax code that allowed wealth to gush up to the top. That was supposed to lead to a boom in the real economy. Instead it lead to a boom in fantasy finance. We have to undo that experiment….now.

thanks for coming Les. If I understand it correctly, one of the supposed “reforms” is to try to standardize these derivatives and force the standardized products to be bought/sold through an exchange, to improve pricing and transparence. Do you think that will work? And if not, then what?

unbelievable. I’ve got to find that. Maybe I’ll blog it on my Huffington Post spot.

I saw Bruce Schiller I think it was, Yale economist, on Charlie Rose recently talking about how the rich ought to pay a bit more in taxation to help the poor folk, but then he launched into the kids in the sandbox and should not be regulated by adults (government) Greenspan metaphor … after all this!!!!!… and he insisted government should not regulate a free market and then he said he was actually proud of his A students at Yale who manipulated so adeptly the market to advantage. I was stunned and googled and emailed him some feelings. Asked him about including ETHICS in his classes. He never answered!

The reselling of mortgages on the secondary market is not some new phenomenon; it has been around for decades and allows banks to free up money to re-lend to new customers

Is there still a market for this funny paper? Are the rating agencies ever going to get penalized for this? Does anyone still trust the rating agencies?

no..I don’t think that will work. The real problem comes from the “specialty” derivatives and they don’t intend to regulate those. Why? Because they are the most profitable. Unfortunately, they are the most dangerous.

We have to find a way to reduce the size of the bloated financial sector and move money from the top fraction of one percent down to the middle and bottom of the income ladder.

Welcome Les,

Have you looked at the slew of pensions being eliminated by business. When did this begin and how is it legally viable. Were new laws enacted to allow this looting?

Shiller is something else. He’s right about a lot of stuff, but he’s a space cadet. However, he is pointing out that we need to do something about the obscene distribution of wealth.

Welcome to the Lake, Les. Haven’t read your book yet so just gonna pick up what I can here before I do.

We have to find a way to reduce the size of the bloated financial sector and move money from the top fraction of one percent down to the middle and bottom of the income ladder.

Speaking of bloated … all that money going to the military as people are starving and losing homes and jobs.. and nickel and diming us setting up a trillion dollar health care program to keep corporations happy and the sheeple in line.

A Synthetic Credit Default Swap occurs when people who have no connection whatsoever to the mortgage backed security, nonetheless take out insurance based on it. Imagine if you had taken out homeowner’s insurance on your next door neighbor’s house, same idea.

So the buyers of these SCDS have no interest in government helping homeowners keep their homes then? I assume Rick Santelli and the Tea Baggers who regarded him as an early hero both have connections to these buyers.

Yep. that market is still there because there still is much too much money in the hands of the few, looking for investments. That demand creates the supply of funny securities.

On of the things I find particuarly galling about Securitized mortgage obligations is that it has created a sytem where the mortgage is now divorced from the right to receive the mortgage payments. So the guy who “owns” your mortgage is different from the guy who receives the payments.

So, when you are underwater on your mortgage and can’t refi and want to try to renegotiate your mortgage, there is no one to talk to.

Further, I have a sneaking suspision that many people have been foreclosed upon by an entity that had no legal standing to do so, becuase that entity did not actually own the mortgage.

THAT drives me crazy.

Unfortunately, all Wall Street and CNBC worries about is how to make money. They could care less about homeowners.

Any move to apply gambling laws to regulate SCDS?

And then as Scott Peck says about specialization, everyone gets to pass the “moral buck” on what in reality is happening to people. The humanity of it all is conveniently detached from.

Like that adage, the corporation as legal person as legal person who happens to be a self-aggrandizing psychopath.

I have a question for all of you: Why isn’t there more outrage about renewed Wall Street sky-high salaries and bloated profits by Goldman and JP Morgan Chase?

Well then, how is that accomplished?

Let’s look at the big picture. From WWII until the mid-1970s this was a very fair country in terms of income distribution. Then we deliberately changed it. In 1970 the ratio of the top 100 CEOs pay to the average workers’ pay was 45 to one. By 2006 it was 1,723 to one! How could we let that happen?

But by making money off of defaulting home loans you screw home owners and the banks who should not be able to sell CDS anymore.
I assume banks are loaning people the money to buy SCDS so this scheme sounds like a perpetual motion machine impossible to make money off of in the long run.

Actually, I think it might be really fun to review the gambling laws of the 50 states to see if some of these investments might qualify. We know they were specifically, yet in a very generic way, exempted from the federal Internet Gambling Law–as was fantasy baseball — but there is a different federal law that makes it crime to violate the gambling laws of any state.

There MIGHT, I say MIGHT, be some relief to be had in that area

a whistleblower at Wells Fargo is now working to inform underwater home owners that they cannot be evicted from their homes because the mortgage holders are not the ones doing the evicting. Amy Goodman had the story on Democracy Now this week.

Does being quietly homicidal when there is any mention of Goldman and company count?

I think all the craziness and misplaced anger over health care is leaking out from the financial fiasco in terms of the right.

As for the progressives, I’m working on the five stages of grief re the Obama administration. Lucy and the footballing. So many fresh hells, so many stages of grief for them all. Shock and awe.

But knew watching Katrina we would all end up metaphorically drowning eventually, too.

Here’s where the current Wall Street profits come from. We provided about $19 trillion in cash, loans and asset guarantees. We changed the accounting laws so that toxic assets could be booked at higher values than mark to market would have allowed. The fed provided money at no cost. Competition was eliminated through forced mergers. And everyone knows that these banks are too big to fail so they are investing in them. If you can’t make money under those conditions, you should quit the business.

Except now they are NOT making money off those homes–cause the housing bubble has burst and some foreclosed homes are not even being put on the market by banks so that they don’t have to sell them at firesale prices and so that they don’t further drive down the real estate market.

SOOOO, along comes Daddy Warbucks I mean the federal government with trillions upon trillions of bailout dollars.

Not to mention gambling in his classes I don’t care if you manipulate a market well I think thats illegal. But gambling well sooner or later you will lose this is not a sound investment its well gambling.

I think one thing we can do is make a test case out of Andrew J. Hall who is about to get $100 million from CitiGroup, a bank which you and I own. Hall is a successful gambler…an oil speculator. He wants his money even though his contract would have been worthless without our bailout of CitiGroup. He might get away with it unless we really pressure the White House and Congress. I mean how blatant can you get?

Ralph Nader was right that the Dems and the Repubs were pretty much the same in terms of loyalty to the corporatists.

What is the answer?

As Elliot asks, “How can we get our money back?”

They say, the only reason Madoff is in jail is he ripped off the rich as well as the poor. Is he being punished for ripping off the rich … was that the motivation for accountability?

Legislation in FL just went into effect that requires banks filing foreclosure notices give renters 90 days notice. There is an effort going on here to organize homeowners to stem the tide of foreclosures by forcing banks to renegotiate.

I’d like to provide a framework for evaluating any and all reforms. Are we moving money out of Wall Street into the real economy? And are we moving money from the super-rich to the middle and the bottom? If we don’t do one of the other, it may not be worth doing.

Good:) I expect that if the SCDS market fails we might see some action after the fact. How is the mood in Washington for another bailout of the financial industry I fear one is coming.

Just like we pay Congress’ salaries, but they seem to be working for the corporations. We are CINOs …. “constituents in name only.” They are really working and still are for the banks and the corps.

They are carrying the houses on their books at inflated prices if they sell them they will have to realize the loss on their books.

After or before the reform “bailout” of the drug and health care industries?

The majority of the public don’t know how the big investment banks affect their lives so they see it as business as usual. As long as it doesn’t affect them personally they just shrug it off. Apathy.

I think the answer is widespread outrage and protest. They can’t get away with renewed obscene salaries if we call them out. Exposure would do wonders. Millions of letters and calls to our representatives would get their attention. It might embarrass them as they cash their campaign checks from the bank lobbyists.

I have not read the book but this is a topic of interest to me.

The problem began before the deregulation. It began when we moved from a more or less cash economy to a credit based one.

While there were always loans and bankers willing to rip you off by lending money, it wasn’t until they got everyone into the credit game – buy now pay later that it moved all the money to the gamblers on wall street.

They were supposed to be handling savings, pensions an retirements but with the greed factor they had a ball in the casino with other people’s money of course.

The watchdogs stopped barking.

And is there no accountability for them?

So many guilty… just move on to the future?

If we got rid of this market wouldn’t money pour in to the stockmarket and real companies and product and T bills? I don’t want another bailout for stupid financial companies with gambling problems.

yes, but I’d want the bank to prove they own the paper.

Chase has just moved into FL and the one ad I’ve heard on radio touts how well they’ve handled other people’s money.

You might like the part of the book that deals with the history of credit and money. It goes way, way back. In fact, the first writing we have from Mesopotamia is mostly about loans and credit. I don’t think we could ever, ever go back to a cash economy. Credit was always part of the scheme. But we can do something about worshiping wealth and correcting a horrible distribution of income.

I think there should be a GIVE-BACK, SAVE YOUR SOUL AND CONSCIENCE FUND for any bonus babies to give back some money to the taxpayers. To THEIR victims. A bill should be passed, and if it stays a BIG FAT VACUUM, then at least it is a symbol of the black hole of morality going on right now.

Someone at Goldman who got one of the whopping bonuses told a reporter, “Well, we really work hard here.” As if cronyism had nothing to do with it. WOW. No capacity even for guilt.

There’s a lot of discussion about that very thing.

Les, let me ask you something. The 3 things you just listed, the bailout money, the change in accounting rule and the forced mergers—they were all supposed to be “emergency” measures.

Is there any time horizon for suspending these practices? I know that some banks are moving to repay some of the bailout money.

And I get the impression that some of the forced mergers maybe unwound–for example Chase took over WaMu but won’t, has not–and I called customer service–and does not intend to issue me a Chase Visa to replace the WaMu VISA in my wallet, which makes me think that Chase is not planning on holding on to WaMu for very long.

The change in accounting rule disturbs me the most, and I can see banksters fighting really hard to keep those from being returned to normal

Seems like the Dow and the unemployment statistics have not much to do with each other. Do they?

Mr Leopold,

Our problems in the economy are deeply structural. We cannot fix a system which is so fundamentally flawed.

If it is so regulated that capital is controlled we have the dreaded socialist economy where the state has a short leash on capital.

And what has happened is that capital has tuned the entire meme in america into money talks. They’ve own the media and control the message. They’ve through M&S turned ALL economic sectors into monopoly control by a few too big to fail corporations.

They write the laws… literally. They bribe congress legally as a result of the laws they had written.

They buy elections, they fix elections. They profit from war. They drag and lie us into war.

We are addicted wage slaves held in their grasp by credit and our credit ratings we live in fear of.

Because the Tea Baggers have stolen the issue lied about it and Obama isn’t doing push back much less bringing these people to trial?
That and the Lefty blogs audience isn’t that big yet. But if the Tea Baggers and Main Stream Media keep getting these stories wrong our audience will grow.
Hopefully Tea Baggers who lost their homes will read your book and look at the blogs looking for answers.
I’m sure Herbert Hoover had his economic defenders back in the day too. It will take time to bring them around.

The problem stems from what we believe is acceptable. In the book I think I show that the big bucks earned over the past twenty years were a mirage…that is they were based on phony securities that now have crashed. Those folks grew accustomed to their entitled high-incomes. They are still in denial. They are not owned up to the fact that they crashed the system. We have a small window to do that before it goes back to “normal”.

That story we need to get in front of the media KO and Rachel need to pick it up.

Mr.L,

Of course we can’t go back to a cash economy. But there was a shift when the credit card made it’s appearance and changed what money was.

This was Walter Wriston’s idea wasn’t it?

This was like putting everyone in shackles on a short leash.

SD, that community may want to contact this woman.

http://www.democracynow.org/20…..an_officer

There were some figures floating around FDL last week or the week before–Bmaz might remember better than me– it turned out that the banks which posted a “profit” had profit less than or equal to the amount of bailout money they received.

So the alleged “profit” was actually the bailout money and in some instances not even all the bailout money.

Yet, it was these “profits” that were listed as one of the excuses why these bonuses were justified.

And the mainstream media says nothing.

One of the reasons I was so happy to host this Book Salon is that I think EVERY PUNDIT, EVERY REPORTER, EVERY PERSON WHO GETS TO ASK QUESTIONS IN PUBLIC–should read this book, so they will understand when the wool is being pulled over their eyes.

But unless there is another bailout this situation cannot go on forever.

I’m not sure how temporary any of this will be. If you look at Nomi Prins website you’ll see that TARP funds and TARP repayment are just a small part of the subsidies. The entire financial sector is resting on our guarantees. That won’t end for a long time. A major problem is that no one knows what to do about institutions that are “too big to fail.” Do we let them fail next time around? I doubt it. It’s a hugh problem. The best way forward is to shrink the entire sector through windfall profits taxes, financial transaction taxes and hard caps on compensation.

We have a small window to do that before it goes back to “normal”.

Normal as in what Rachel Maddow calls an “ethical freakshow of a universe.”

Did AIG get $170 billion for the bailout? Could that be right?

And what about the conflict of interests and conflict of cronyism with Paulsen. Goldman wanting payback for AIG, so Lehman tanks so Goldman can get its money? Taibbi spelled out all the bubbles … where can the accountability police come from?

I saw that. Wells Fargo took over Wachovia and the customers are not a happy bunch here.

Do you write about the shadow banking going on?

How about the mysterious BIS? Or the IMF is it?

M&A are the exact opposite of what we should see happen.

We should have be trust busting, outlawing interlocking directorships, cartels, holding companies, vertical integration in the market place and so forth.

All the arbitrage and leveraged buyouts were prescriptions for disaster for workers and consumers.

Business is too big. We are being killed by big and globalization is our enemy.

What do you think of Obama’s Bernanke choice?

Sander–the Antitrust Laws from the days of Teddy Roosevelt are still on the books. All we need is a DOJ willing to enforce them.

Interesting how some of the best business regulations in the history of our nation were written under the two Roosevelt presidencies?

That’s true. We’ve made credit easier and easier to get. But for consumers there’s a real limit. In the book, we show how debt versus income of the average family doubled over the past twenty years. It hit a ceiling. That’s what stopped the dramatic rise of housing prices. But I think wealth distribution is much more important than credit, per se.

Crikey, let me see if I can find that – it was an article I posted I think…..

I’m surprised RM and KO have not picked up on it. It’s been an issue since last year. Although MSM refuses to report it, predictably.

They are still in denial. They are not owned up to the fact that they crashed the system.

That’s a money quote!

Which brings me back to how important it is to get the public question askers to understand this, so they will call up these MOTU and ask them the sort of questions that may penetrate this state of denial

How is Obama handling this banking crisis compared to how FDR handled things and what is your judgement on where we are heading?

AIG got at least $170 billion and, yes, AIG gave Goldman $13 billion in CDS payments that Goldman would not have gotten if AIG crashed. Crony capitalism was certainly part of it all. But, if we had any guts, we’d slap a windfall profits tax on Goldman and get the money back. I can’t believe no one in Congress is yelling for that. Crony capitalism exposes are not enough, I’m afraid.

So do we have ANY friends in Congress willing to bite the corporate hand that feeds them or doesn’t?

Shock and awe and demoralization…. despair. The energy for outrage. It has to build and comes after the shock. 3 kinds of people, those who make things happened, those who watch things happen, those who ask “WTF happened?” And we don’t have leadership, and we have a crazymaking disinformation corporate media.

Sorry for the OT – Terry Schiavo’s father died today. Heart attack.

Frankly, it is my belief that capitalism is deeply flawed and also apparently more american that apple pie or the constitution.

It can be made to work with lots and lots of regulations laws and enforcement. We won’t do that because Wealth is what America is about.

This economy will completely crash with a few years. Nothing can prevent that now. Can’t put humpty dumpty back together again.

On top of peak oil we’re cooked.

I supported Obama and I like him a lot. But, he’s being a total wimp with Wall Street. They were on their knees begging and he let them up. We should have asked for stringent controls as we gave them the bailouts, not now. We’ll never get it now. It’s a great disappointment. One big difference between the 1930s and now is that there is not left pressure on Obama. It’s all coming from the right. FDR was pushed by a very strong left.

A major problem is that no one knows what to do about institutions that are “too big to fail.” Do we let them fail next time around? I doubt it. It’s a hugh problem. The best way forward is to shrink the entire sector through windfall profits taxes, financial transaction taxes and hard caps on compensation.

If the banks need another bailout given the political climate Obama might be forced to buy/nationalize the banks and of course then he could reduce the bank CEO pay.

Representative Peter Defazio from Oregon has proposed a tax on all financial transactions. It’s a good idea but it’s buried in committee.

Any signs the DOJ is thinking of using antitrust law?

We don’t know what nationalization means. Are we willing to keep the largest banks as public utilities? Or are we just going to clean them up with tax payer money and then sell them back to private investors?

Which committee? We can start making calls and spreading the word?

The sad truth is that the Obama administration just wants the financial system to get back to “normal”. DOJ anti-trust suits are not going to happen since that would spook investors, roil markets etc.

not sure…ask Defazio’s office

Mr. L I think you’re correct that having all the chips on one side of the table makes the game rather boring to use a metaphor.

Capitalism consolidates wealth and is like a black hole in that all value added of labor is sucked over to capital.

I don’t know the anti trust laws, but I doubt that they could be used to break up all the giant corporations that run the world.

Exxon?
GE
BoA?

for example…

I agree, but the elites problem is much wider than just this country, IMO.

From the Washington Post:

The nation’s nine largest banks handed out $32.6 billion in bonuses last year even as they ran up more than $81 billion in losses and accepted billions of dollars in emergency federal aid, New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo says in a report released Thursday.

It’s really sick. They could only “make” that money because of our bailout. A dramatic windfall tax would really work and the American public would buy it.

Odds are the banks will need more money I think we will get a second time at bat. FDR unlike Obama had a much bigger crisis giving him political capital. We just need to avoid falling into Tea Bagger Brown Shirt Nazism.

Obama does not consider progressive ideas as part of the dialogue about america. He believes in market based solutions.

Is it regular investors who would be spooked or those with so much excess capital that necessitated these exotic instruments?

I supported Obama and I like him a lot. But, he’s being a total wimp with Wall Street. They were on their knees begging and he let them up. We should have asked for stringent controls as we gave them the bailouts, not now.

Aggggggghhhhhhh. So our champion turns out to work for the other side. And the right keeps accusing him of rampant liberalism and socialism. Oy vey.

Chicago Friedmanism?

and then sell them back to private investors?

Only if we sell them at a profit after charging a fair rate of interest.

Other countries are showing more guts. Lord Turner, Britain’s chief regulator, just called for a transaction tax to reduce the “bloated” financial sector (his words.) France is calling for much more stringent controls on banker compensation. We’re in the dark ages.

Obama has been a corporatist for quite a while.

Mr L said it too – no break up of corporations.

This means we’re screwed and even at 11:59 there is no hope.

A major problem is that no one knows what to do about institutions that are “too big to fail.” Do we let them fail next time around?

I spent weeks reading the transcripts and reports from the Pecora Commission. The “too big to fail” argument was used then too–by Citibank (Which had a different name back then) and the banks fought mightily to keep the right to sell securities, yet Glass-Steagall (did I spell it right this time? I always seem to mess up Steagall) was passed and these huge institutions were forced to split in component parts, separating commercial banking, investment banking and securities dealing intro 3 separate industries.

T’was an excellent solution. I will tell you, when G-S was repealed, my then husband worked for a very white shoe brokerage house. They were very ethical, constantly getting memos and having seminars about putting the client’s need ahead of churning accounts for profit. It was what a brokerage house ought to be.

Then after G-S was repealed, they got bought by a bank. Suddenly they were competing against “branch brokers” in the bank branches who were right out of college, got paid crap and knew nothing.

But the branch brokers had access to all their client lists and charged less commission, so you can imagine what happened. Guys who had Advanced degrees in economics and decades of experience watched as their books of business melted.

Ex husband left with his core clients and became an investment advisor instead to avoid the conflict of interest.

The too big to fail guys wouldn’t be too big if G-S had not been repealed

Wow.. So many good comments and so much to discuss. I do think we need to fear the right. I can imagine a demagogue going to unemployment offices and waving a copy of Hall’s $100 million check saying: “Obama got this from him. What did he do for you?”

Right now there are 30 million unemployed and underemployed. Not good.

What the hell is a regular investor?

Putting money in the market with a broker is NOT INVESTING. It’s gambling

And investor provides money to grow an idea or a business.

Do you know any investors?

Yeah … the “change” message was so not real … so much about sustaining the profitmaking of the status quo power brokers.

The Financial system won’t get back to normal SCDS are a time bomb, the rating agencies are a joke nobody trusts them I think people are buying in short term the first sign of financial trouble SCDS, CDS, the Bank stocks etc everyone will sell so quick the Stock Market will halt trading again.
Either Obama tries some bankers then or the Tea Baggers will blame him for what happened.

Mr. L,

This board is populated by very brilliant people, (I am not one of them). Be prepared!

Excellent point. It will take some bold action like G-S to move us in the right direction. Hard wage caps also would do wonders.

I’d call pension funds regular investors. I’d also call holding securities, like my grandfather did, for an extended amount of time investing. Buying and selling shares for short term profit is speculating, or gambling. There is a difference.

The to big to fail guys wouldn’t be too big if G-S had not been repealed

And Bill Clinton gave away the store. And was big on outsourcing jobs for globalization (like mine to India). Both Repubs and Dem parties let the American working class twist in the wind.

I have a lot of hope on the “new Pecora Commission” which is being headed by Phil Angelides. Once they get up and running, it is my hope that they will be able to make the case for the reforms that are so desperately needed and is the hearings are as dramatic as in the first Pecora Commission, hopefully it will generate enough “news” to get Congress all fired up. But, we’ll see

Wall Street was is little more than a bunch of people making bets with essentially money that they print.

Fractional reserve banking was only the beginning of the scam to print their own money. Congress let’s em do it. They don’t even understand how it works.

There’s also a difference between theory and practice. By your definition venture capitalists are investors.

That should be the first act re-instated. Why is the fear of action here so debilitating to Congress? Do they fear for their lives or “just” for their campaign contributions?

The problem really goes all the way back to the mid-1970s. That’s when the cool-aid was spread around. Our economy seemed to be faltering after the great post-war boom. Milton Friedman’s anti-government regulation ideas really caught on. The idea that public virtue would come from each of us fighting for our own self-interest took hold of our policy apparatus. So Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush…. all bought into it..or so I argue.

SD,

The word is not investing and this is a misnomer. This is nothing more than saving and looking for a return “interest”.

Interest used to be made as the fee for letting someone use your money.

But the share appreciation or the reverse has nothing to do with using money for PRODUCTION – its speculation in perceived value.

The Antitrust Division at DOJ under Shrub suffered horribly, or so I’m told. I don’t think it curently has enough expertise and institutional memory in place to begin a robust enforcement campaign.

That being said, with some time and good recruiting and lots of in-house career development work, there is no reason that the antitrust division could not get some things going now and pick up speed as it goes along.

It’s a question of whether anyone in DC sees this as 1) desirable and 2) a priority

I think we may have to revisit the work of Keynes and Hyman Minsky. They believed in capitalism in the real economy. But they were not sure free-enterprise really would work in the financial sector. It always seemed to move towards a speculative casino. Not sure what the alternative looks like, but I think we need to find an alternative to the casino.

Thanks. Will follow up on that. The Pecora Commission???? Angelides … is he a member of Congress? Sorry. I am clueless on so much of this.

I joke about all the fresh hells, but it is true. There are so many fronts, so many fires, so many new shocking disclosures all in need of proaction and pushback. There is outrage beginning but the windows of opportunity close fast, and status quo glacial moving, bribed governmental leaders let it happen.

We need organization. And the no union thing doesn’t help for sure.

Venture capitalist who put money into a new business ARE investing. They are predatory and demand enormous return and that is criminal.

When these guys began with their who meme of risk management you know that it’s all kabuki.

Institutional memory?

Read the damn law and apply it. Let’s not make this rocket science.

The safe investments 50 years ago were utilities and IBM. And PENSIONS were sacrosanct. Now they are stolen with no accounting.

I’m can’t get away from the distribution of income. The latest tax data (2007) shows that those with AGI of over $1 million (400,000 returns) had as much reported income as the bottom 56 percent of returns — about 80 million people. That’s both a moral disaster and the basis for the casino economy.

To what extent do you think Obama’s policies in this sector are driven by his association and friendship with so much of “The Chicago school” folks?

I honestly believe that most of them really believe the bull pucky being tossed about that these financial instruments are ”too hard” to understand.

Les did a great job of making them very easy to understand.

The “too complex” canard travels along with the “too big to fail” canard. If it’s all just too hard, well we (Congress) should do nothing.

The press is enabling this by repeating the idea that even really smart people cannot understand these transactions. Well, Les understands them. I understand them. Les has written a book that make sit easy for ANYBODY to understand them

So, I guess it’s not really all that hard after all?

Hi Les,

Do you really think the public is completely oblivious about what’s going on or have they simply accepted a reality where the financial industry has carte blanche to do whatever they want and there isn’t much the public can do about it? Sure, the public may not understand all the intricacies of the looting taking place, but even when they voice intelligent outrage, it’s completely ignored by elites. If we’re really going to do anything about it, where should we begin? With campaign finance? Electing more democrats? A new political party?

Also with Reagan, with the air traffic controllers. Also taking away aid say for mental health, serious numbers of homeless ever increasing since then. Remember Nancy R. on 60 minutes telling Mike Wallace neighbors will help each other, we don’t need to legislate help. The big lie that neighbor “charity” will help people. We don’t need government interference. Wow. They really banged that drum and hypnotized the country. And now socialism for the rich. Let the poor eat cake. John Edwards said there are TWO AMERICAS. Greenwald talks about two Americas of justice. The poor go to jail. The rich get rewarded.

Capitalism will not work in the business sector EITHER if vertical integration in markets is allowed, interlocking directorships, mergers and acquistions and monopolies.

Why compete? Let’s merge and cut our cost and take the whole market and control price and even the cost of labor? THAT’S WHAT’s HAPPENING to this day.

THAT IS NOT INVESTING

I appreciate the effort it takes to make the exotic securities understandable. Do you think the Wall Streeters and the politicians think we are too stupid to understand these things and therefore can be ignored when it comes to a) insisting on prosecution and civil suits and b) re-regulation?

I think it’s more that he hooked up with Geithner and Summers instead of someone like Krugman (who supported Hillary and wiped himself out of the discussion.) Those folks believe in Wall Street’s fundamental prowess. They want renewed stability. Yes, they want to get rid of some excesses but they they bankers are needed and deserve a great deal of money.

So was the SEC horribly understaffed? Bush staffed watchdog governmental agencies with their anti-heroes.

What do you think is honestly with Obama? Does he just not care, or needs to ride the tiger the first wave of his term? Or is he in its belly (which I suspect sadly)?

Thanks Cynthia.

It’s even easier if you look at pay and the distribution of income. Nobody is worth $100 million a year. Americans are just starting to understand what bankers and traders paid themselves …and then stuck us with the bill. At the very least we should stop the payday to Andrew J. Hall. That’s not too hard to understand.

No need for shouting and we obviously look at things differently.

People are very uninformed about the economy. They zone out, exhausted from the struggles in their own lives.

What about Reich? Do you think he could have helped? And Kuttner is it?

I have some sympathy for Obama. He’s trying to stop a crash and turn the economy around. Unfortunately, he removed the focus from the crash and unemployment and moved it to health care. He’s hoping the economy will rebound in time for the mid-term elections. He’s cooked if he bet wrong.

Kuttner is great. He would have been a welcome addition. Reich is good too but we need more Kuttner’s.

Sorry, in the 1930’s the Senate Banking Committee set up a commission to investigate and report back to Congress the causes for the Great Depression. The Commission became known as the Pecora Commsission because of really riveting hearing conducted by the Chief Counsel, Ferdinand Pecora. The previous Chief Counsels had all been lawyers who worked in finance and they kept saying things like “too big to fail” and “too complex to understand”. The Commission was on its way to being a dud, when they brought in Pecora (he was the 4th chief counsel)

Anyway. Pecora was not a Wall Street guy, he was an ex-ADA from Manhattan who had tried public corruption cases, and fraud cases. And murder cases.

In May, a new law was signed that included a provision for a Commission to investigate the causes for the current financial crisis. The Chief Commissioner is a man named Phil Angelides.

I’m hoping and praying that my book can help. I’ve spent thirty years teaching economics to working adults. I know they can get it when you try not to impress them with how smart and technically proficient you are. I’m hoping that enough of us can do our part to spread the educational tools that are needed.

Sorry, point taken.

Why are these “instruments” even called “securities”. The entire world of wall street is a world of oz. It can be dismantled and replaced with a rational banking system.

Why do we need “investments” as people call them?

Why can’t we simply have a government pension? Why don’t we “invest” in our own government and let IT pay us in the future?

The question is : If we guaranteed Congress members they would completely understand the subject by reading Les’ book, would they then read it? In the Senate I would expect no more than 5 would. But if the question were: If our corporation gave you $100,000 to vote vs. Glass-Steagall, would you do it? Then 90% would.

WHAT IS NOT INVESTING !

I asked earlier… not sure if you saw. What is the BIS… is it Banking International Settlements and that is involved with the International Monetary Fund somehow? They are hooked up with the Fed Reserve?

Do these guys … are they required to have transparency?????

Why did Bernanke just slide in one more time? The Chicago Goldman cronyism once again. Has Obama no shame?

I gotta get educated for sure. Your book will help I am sure!!!

At the financial blogs I frequent, the consensus is that exotic instruments are a just a way to part savvier investors from their money. For the rubes, A) they have less money and B) simpler cons work on them.

They also respond to voter pressure. But we really are not mobilized. It’s all coming at them from the other side. The bankers are in their ears. We’re not anywhere near them.

One of the lessons here is that institutional memory has nothing to do with honesty and critical thinking.

When you pull bake the curtain and describe what’s there the solutions are not that difficult. But the rich will take a haircut.

Thank you so much, Cynthia! Good to know about and watch for!!! Take those molecules of hope and appreciate the standup guys who are doing the heavy lifting right now! (present company included)

It’s worse than that. Recently Judge Rakoff in the SDNY has twice refused to ratify a settlement between the EC and Merrill Lynch because he hasn’t seen the basis for the laughingly light fine SEC is imposing in connection with mistatement that Merrill made about a merger.

And the excuse is “It’s too hard for the poor SEC to understand” and that the Merrill Execs say they didn’t understand and relied upon what their much smarter lawyers told them was OK to do.

Gah!

Someone else will have to explain BIS. But Bernanke is a very interesting case. He didn’t see the bubble coming or refused to interfere with the free market. But he really is a student of the Great Depression. Back then the Fed did everything wrong. It tightened the money supply and defended the dollar/gold standard. It made the crash worse. Bernanke has done much better. But I don’t think he’ll go after the fundamental problems — the distribution of wealth and the bloated financial sector.

sending your money to some broker to buy shares from some other guy who wants to sell them.

How does that purchase go to building a company or an idea?

Perhaps an IPO you are funding the growth of a new company. But buying shares is not investing.

Yep. That haircut is badly needed and soon.

He’s cooked if he bet wrong.

He bet wrong. The economy is likely to go down in 2011, after the mid-terms in 2010 and before the general in 2012.

The only concrete personal example I can give is my grandfather. He bought shares of Coca-Cola either just prior to WWII or during. They paid a modest dividend and when he retired in the early 60s he sold them. That money provided him with a modest lifestyle and supported my grandmother for almost 30 years after he died in 1968. I’d certainly call that an investment.

I agree with you about the pay packages, but in all honesty, think that Director Liability has to be in the tool box. That pay package was approved by a Board of Direcotrs. In the “good old days” directors actually faced some accountbility.

The damn shame is that if Obama gets weakened the right will gain, not the left. We’ll get more wealth flowing to the super-rich and our next crash will be even more costly. But there’s very little pressure coming from the progressive side.

Stop being modest:)

Why did Bernanke just slide in one more time?

Great question. He hasn’t slild in yet though. But what I want to know what kind of mushrooms were liberal or more reality based economists eating that several of them endorsed him. Even Jamie Galbraith while not backing him sort of pulled his punches the last I saw him write in the NYT.

Bubbles are a great example of how the financial markets and corporations and business enter into asset bubble to make money from nothing… that is for the insiders who exit before the inflated bubble bursts. And they go from one bubble to the next because the financial sector doesn’t create anything of real value, only perceived value. So they manipulate markets, blow up bubbles and then engineer their collapse having exited first and then buy up assets at very depressed prices and resell at a profit.

It’s happening now.

But what standard do they use? The call in consultants who look at what everyone else is getting. What about going back to the Eisenhower tax rates of 90 percent on the super-rich?

Also, the bankers have their direct dial phone numbers and we have to communicate via blog post which gets picked up (if we’re lucky) by a pundit or a guy with news show, who might ask a quaestion.

Very convoluted process. As opposed to the MOTU who hits speed dial and gets put straight through to his favorite Congress Critter

That’s no different than putting the money in a savings bank, but the return may be higher. When you have a pass book account you don’t call that an investment.

Ironically it IS more of an investment than a share purchase, because in the old days savings banks lent depositors money to people who needed loads for homes and business growth.

That’s now. My point was about 50 years ago, when companies and dreams could be built. And when entrepreneurs could build public companies by selling shares in their ideas and capabilities.

I really don’t get you, when I’m on YOUR side.

Re Bernanke … Obama doesn’t want to rock the boat the Titanic??? … so doesn’t want to upset the markets. Isn’t so much being sacrificed not to distress the markets… when the working class is left to drown. Do the markets and employment reflect each other when things improve or can it improve just for the markets? Isn’t that what the media watches, too. And puffs up small turns in unemployment? Or does a positive WS outlook help the little guys?

Bubbles form, always and everywhere, from the mal-distribution of income. I can think of no bubble from WWII until the savings and loan fiasco. During that period we had a very narrow distribution of income. Then we let income go to the top and we were in the bubble era again.

So would I. My father did the same thing.

Of course, you’re right again. But we’ve got to try to blow through their buffers.

Ms Kouril,

You point out the obvious power of money and wealth – access to decision makers, rain makers and government.

Money is free speech in america. No money no free speech (that’s listened to)

I keep thinking that Andrew J. Hall is our poster-child. Getting a $100 for speculating in oil from a failed bank that is totally supported by the tax-payer seems a bit much. Even the Blue Dog Dems would have trouble explaining that away.

This is a word thing.

Buying shares in a business is different from buying shares ALREADY in circulation from a broker.

Do you see the difference? What is it?

Money is free speech in america. No money no free speech (that’s listened to)

So true. Hoping Michael Moore’s new movie will help with financial meltdown.

Wish they were running SICKO again!

I cannot, however, sell my credit union shares (savings account) for more money than I put in to it. Since Coke didn’t actually see any of the money my grandad paid for the shares he wasn’t investing in Coke, he was investing in his, and my gramma’s, future. I don’t have a problem with that.

Whose money was he speculating with?

The ONLY way you sell that tax plan is by POUNDING the “it came from a Republican” meme, endlessly.

But I don’t know if we will ever be free of voodoo economics. Once Bush the First—who originally campaigned against the trickle down theory and coined the phrase Voodoo Econ.—caved in and drank the Reagan economic cool aide, it was as if the entire nation, left and right became brainwashed on this subject

I hear you. The only good news is that it failed so dramatically. I mean I never thought I’d see the entire financial system go splat right before my very eyes. You would think that would dent the ideology a bit.

And lack of unions, too, fighting for justice for the working class doesn’t help.

Wouldn’t you consider the stunt those guys from Texas pulled when they tried to corner the market on silver a bubble?

What were their names? Hunt maybe? I think they were brothers.

Yes, absolutely, better accountability for directors should be part of the mix.

Actually, he was using your money. He’s back by CitiGroup. They invest in him. He plays the market for him. He gambled and won a couple of billion. His take is $100 million….or so he thinks. He went to Vegas with your money and had no responsibility for any losses.

You are using the phrase – investing in X’s future.

This is why there is confusion when people put their hard earned money in the hands of a broker on wall street. He playing with THEIR future by trading (santized word for gambling). He gets a commisions win or lose, and more big blocks of stock can be used to manipulate price. Add to that shorts, naked shorts, puts and so forth and it’s a rigged game down there using OPM to rake in commissions and fees.

These brokerages house manufacture information when they can to push the market up. Mostly BS because it’s all based on perception.

True. (But it made a great money with Eddie Murray.) It was more of a scam than a bubble. A bubble usually means lots of folks get into it. I think of the savings and loan crisis as the first big one after deregulation.

sorry I mean to say a great “movie” –Trading Places

Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt

Don’t blame it on Regan.

It was the Rockefellers and the Rothchilds who engineered this mess. Regan was just the charming salesmen from GE.

of course there’s a difference, which is why I pointed it out. I don’t do the patronizing thing. Try somewhere else.

With Bernanke there is also the question of opacity. The Fed is fighting Bloomberg’s FOIA suit to find out who the Fed has been lending to. Transparency does not mean what he thinks it means.

Actually, I would love to get my paws on a copy of this supposedly iron clad contract that guarantees him a “bonus” no matter how badly he fails. Among other things, when I taught contracts it was black letter law that words had their customary meanings.

I go crazy when I hear things coming out of pundits mouths about the sanctity of contractual obligations. That flies in the the face of the Uniform Commercial Code which makes it a market VIRTUE to break a contract that is no longer economically sound.

When you break the unsound contract, of course you have to pay reasonable damages, but to avoid a greater liability

Yes, indeed we’ve all been robbed. Unfortunately when the dust settles the financial sector will have just as much influence in Congress as it ever had.
We get robbed and nothing changes. The billionaires get richer. The rest of us get poorer.

Are there any good guy banks/financial institutions or high profile CEOs, boards of directors, shareholder groups, etc., who could be good guys out there or is that an oxymoron?

What if corporations were not given the rights of “legal personhood”? Would that help?

I would argue that it goes a lot farther. We have a mindset that says it’s ok to make as much as you can as fast as you can, no matter what. We admire those who do. We let them fund our libraries and colleges. We seek them out for their wisdom. Not so in the 1930s.

In the 60’s and very early 70’s, the “underground” media as well as the MSM (the dreaded liberal media) were on the case of financial and corporate malfeasance. There was a very different attitude then.

In your research, have you identified a turning point? What do you think caused it? Was it the Powell memo or was that just one of the pieces?

If Coke had gone under my grandad would have lost his money. If I “invest” in a new idea or business and it goes bust we have the same outcome. My grandad was hoping, “betting,” that Coke would prosper. By investing my money in an idea or business I’m doing the same thing.

Oh please get that contract! I would love you to go through it. We just can’t let it go through. It will really promote apathy because folks will figure there’s nothing we can do…

I didn’t mean to be patronizing. I thought you did not see the difference as most people seem to not. Sorry.

A nice person I know sent me the motion papers from that FOIA request, Bernanke’s defense is basically–if America knew what we were doing it would cause a panic on a scale with Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast.

OK, they didn’t actually mention Orson Welles, I made that up–but their defense is that if America actually knew, everything would collapse.

Don’t you feel so much better being shielded form the awful knowledge like that?

Very good question and a difficult one. I think lots of things made us give up on government. The Vietnam War was a very big factor. The inflation chaos that followed. The failure of the Great Society to bring justice to the inner-cities. Without a positive image of government it was much easier to turn to the sanctity of markets as the alternative. Thatcher-Reagan was an important turning point.

The FDIC in its last quarterly report out in June I believe listed some $7 trillion dollars that had already gone out the door to bailout and backstop the financial industry. I ususally ask when someone comes by here if they know anything about the $3.2 trillion of it in a Treasury program to backstop money markets. The original report was extremely vague. People who have talked to people at Treasury get something of a run around. I was wondering if you had heard anything about this.

If anybody can figure out how to get their paws on a copy of that contract, Mr. Leopold and I might be able to have some fun with it

Speaking of movies, The Yes Men Fix the World is inspiring.

http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/

These guys are fearless and so showup narcissism and greed and obtuseness!

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has said that such contracts often have all kinds of clauses about how the contractee is supposed to act and that these are almost always violated and that this could provide an avenue to contest other sections of it.

Check out Nomi Prins speadsheet. It’s on-line. She’s got each program and its cost listed. She also has it by company. In her accounting it’s $19 trillion right now. (She used to work at Morgan Stanley)

Exactly.

Real investing involves risk of loss of your capital. But the returns are usually higher. Putting money in the market is presumably low risk perhaps more than a savings account of bond. Most people do the blue chip thing because those companies were stable and paid a reliable dividend.

Recently most companies abandoned dividends and it became all about share price. Which then led to short term strategies to drive of share price, such as cutting expenses by moving manufacturing off shore.

The whole came became short term profits not what was good for the company the workers, the economy. What was good for the stock holders and the CEO was paid well to make shareholders richer.

We agree on this.

Um, maybe you need to give Barney Frank a call.

Wish I knew how to get it. I keep hoping if we bang away enough on it, he might come out of the shadows and defend himself or the Pay Czar might have to reveal more information.

They can’t tell us the truth because people would freak and there would be panic and the system would collapse so let’s pretend and maybe it will go away.

Bernacke’s defense is basically–if America knew what we were doing it woudl cause a panic on a scale with Orson Well’s War of the World’s broadcast.

Except as Yves Smith has pointed out so many banks have made use of them that it has taken the stigma off of them. And let’s face it. There is a list of over 400 “problem” banks and I doubt that most people even know if the list exists or if their bank shows up on it.

Speaking of Barney Frank. I wish he would stop praising financial innovation…as in “we need to be careful not to hold back…..” What are those innovations, exactly?

I emailed Nomi about it actually. She had heard of the money market program but had not been able to get any information out of the Treasury.

Interesting. We should stay on the trail of that.

Les, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us discussing your new book and the financial crisis.

Cynthia, Thank you very much for Hosting this great Book Salon.

Everyone, if you haven’t bought Les’s book yet, here is a link.

Thanks all.

Mr. L,

Your understanding has to make it to main street. People don’t understand the financial sector at all. Telcom is somewhat understandable, Oil and so forth. But the workings of the economy, the Fed, fractional reserve banking are like black holes for them.

They get a pay check, pay their bills, borrow for a car or a house, use the CCards and pay the prices at the pump and the register at the grocery store.

We need to be educated. And we need to have our congress educated.

And most of all we need to have representative who act in the interest of the people not the corporations and the financial sector which held a gun to their head recently.

Gang, Just a quick advertisement. If you read the book, please review it somewhere, (even if you don’t like it.) I want to help make it part of the broader debate. Many thanks.

wish he would stop praising financial innovation…as in “we need to be careful not to hold back…..” What are those innovations, exactly?

[Standing on a chair. Clapping loudly until arms hurt]

Thanks so much for this opportunity. My fingers are about to fall off but your comments were terrific. Great bunch of folks.

best

Les

But there’s very little pressure coming from the progressive side.

Read the lefty blogs more there is plenty of pressure the media just doesn’t cover us. Or our ideas until its to late and everything we warned would happen has happened. 8 years of being right and Bush being wrong.

I came late but have you talked about Goldman and how it has its tentacles embedded in the NY Fed and the Treasury? Personally, I think GS and MS have no reason to exist. I would basically cut off credit lines to them and to any of the investment divisions in other financial institutions. In fact for them I would re-impose Glass-Steagall. And why are our crummy legislators not moving forcibly to re-enact it? (Rhetorical question)

Cynthia, Bev.

Thanks so much. You guys know your stuff.

best,

Les

Good Talk please come back :)

That’s a hoot aint it – new financial innovation and finacial instruments, hedges and risk managements, derivatives which are trades of enormous amounts with no underlying value, futures markets and so on. They really got innovative in their architecture of the financial house of cards

Awesome salon! thanks!!!!

Thanks for coming by. Enjoyed the discussion.

amen to that. what a mess!

Mr. L,

Thanks for your time today, your concern and hard work. A real American hero!

Les

Thank you so much, this has been tremendous fun and I hope we have edjumaketed some people. I do agree that we need to broadcast this information.

Say it along with me folks, these banks are not too big to fail, and these financial products are not too hard to understand.

Especially if you have Les’s book to help you understand.

Thanks to eveybody in the comments. This has been a really rocketing Book Salon.

Hugh, Thank you for your participation

Again. Thanks to all of you. It gives one hope.

Thank you for a most interesting discussion, Les. Just ordered your book.

As I said earlier, innovation was all about how to separate more “sophisticated” investors from their money. They were too smart to buy the snakeoil but were patsies for the new wonder magnets.

Thanks for coming, Les.

I am going to walk the dogs and hope.

Will look for your book in the bookstores or the clubs.

But I fear that no matter how many books are written on the subject, the tyrannosaurs on Wall Street are positioned to win big again. Very little genuine regulation has come out of Congress and the desire to enforce what laws we have hardly exists at all. And Wall Street can now be confident that if another bailout is needed help will surely arrive on demand.

Obama has shown himself to be a weakling. He backed down on the stimulus, has all but abandoned the public option for health care and by his cabinet appointments he has revealed himself to be a friend of the big banks and investment houses.

If this country should need another stimulus package, Obama won’t be able to get us a dime. With unemployment raging in double digits (that is in real terms not phony government numbers) and underemployment at all time highs, what plan does Obama have for Main Street, if any?

Too early to tell about the stimulus. It seems to be having some impact. But if it fails more will be needed. And therein lays his Achilles heel. He won’t get it. How about extended benefits for workers mired in unemployment? Not a chance.

The Wall Street tyrannosaurs will have their way with him and us once again, but thanks for the effort to explain how it’s done.

emptywheel is upstairs!
Cheney: Torturers Can Do No Wrong

Cynthia, great salon. Thanks go to you and Les and Bev.

Jane Hamsher is upstairs!
Health Care Reporting: Bill Moyers Shows How It’s Done

thanks.