Oligarchs hate that financial transactions tax, and they have senior administration officials in high places to protect their wealth from any tax, no matter how small.

Oligarchy is the Problem. We need a solution.

This has been described as another bailout, and it’s not hard to see why. The derivatives go into the insured institution, protecting the counter-parties, and they would be paid off in the event of a failure. Notice that the counter-parties themselves are managing the process, requesting that their bets get implicit government backing. The notional value on these derivatives trades is $75 trillion, with a T. This includes their European derivatives exposure. And according to Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase has already done this.

Just as most derivatives are set to be put onto clearinghouses, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner exempted a large group of derivatives, foreign currency swaps, from the regulations.

Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase are leeches. Why don’t they move to Singapore?

The bank lobbyists are pushing hard for this exemption, which should tell you a lot about it. And Geithner appears to be right there with them.

Way back in the day when I was just a mere independent blogger and not THE MEDIA ENTIRE I wrote about the practice lobbyists engaged in on the climate change bill, forging letters to members of Congress and claiming they came from grassroots organizations. I labeled the practice “astroforging.”

This was a fairly noteworthy scandal, and it appeared that no lobbyist would try such a tactic ever again.

That took about a year.

The Final Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is a fascinating history of the Great Crash of 2008. Join us as FDL’s Ed Walker hosts a special FDL Book Salon chat with Commissioner Byron Georgiou about the FCIC’s findings.

Administrative Law Judge at the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), George Painter, revealed in his retirement letter that a colleague of his, Judge Bruce Levine, has never awarded a case in favor of a plaintiff in 20 years on the bench. He traces this back to a deal Levine made with Wendy Gramm, the former head of the CFTC and the wife of Phil Gramm (R-Enron and UBS). Indeed, the numbers check out, at least for the time period we know about; Judge Levine has never decided in favor of a plaintiff, i.e. never decided in favor of an investor crying mistreatment or fraud by a commodity dealer or major broker in commodity futures and derivatives trading.

Pennsylvania is one of those states in the industrial Midwest where the public mood is incredibly inhospitable to Democrats. At the same time, the Democratic enclaves around Philadelphia and its suburbs could boost statewide candidates if they manage to hold serve elsewhere. The Senate race is intriguing for how Joe Sestak is running against Pat Toomey – painting him as too extreme for the state and comparing him to the likes of the state’s former conservative Senator, Rick Santorum.