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POPSKrugman Sounds The Alarm On Banks - Again.
So who was this thundering bank critic? None other than Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s chief economist — and one of the architects of the administration’s bank policy, which up until now has been to go easy on financial institutions and hope that they mend themselves. Why the change in tone? Administration officials are furious at the way the financial industry, just months after receiving a gigantic taxpayer bailout, is lobbying fiercely against serious reform. But you have to wonder what they expected to happen. They followed a softly, softly policy, providing aid with few strings, back when all of Wall Street was on the ropes; this left them with very little leverage over firms like Goldman that are now, once again, making a lot of money. But there’s an even bigger problem: while the wheeler-dealer side of the financial industry, a k a trading operations, is highly profitable again, the part of banking that really matters — lending, which fuels investment and job
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POPS Project 10 to the 100 Excellent project from the heart of Google! Last date to vote is coming closer...A visit to the site is a must to learn more details. Let Google spend on the mankind :)
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POPSWill he jump? While some passers-by like 23-year-old Verena Kircher found the piece "alarming," others like Caroline van Kelst thought it was beautiful. "It is crystal clear that this is not a suicide," she said. "He has definitely got something about him which is majestic, not desperate."
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POPSFDIC Sets Rules for Private Equity to Buy Shut Banks 
The FDIC has twice brokered deals with private-equity groups this year. In March, California-based IndyMac Federal Bank, split off from IndyMac Bancorp Inc., was sold to investors led by Steven Mnuchin, an ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banker, and including buyout firm J.C. Flowers & Co. Florida’s BankUnited Financial Corp. was sold in May to firms including Blackstone Group and Wilbur Ross’s WL Ross & Co. Today’s vote, which followed a public comment period on the July proposal, shows the FDIC was listening to critics who said the initial plan would drive away potential investors, Ross said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ‘Champagne-Cork Popper’ “The new proposal is better than the one they had before but it isn’t a champagne-cork popper,” Ross said. The agency agreed to shelve a proposal that would have required investors that owned at least two banks to cover losses in the event of a failure. The rules scale back this provision, applying it . . .
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POPSObama’s Well Organized Community Is Falling Apart "Who spends an obscene $1 Billion dollars to win a lousy $400,000 per year job, and why? The people behind Obama expect a return on their investment. And they are NOT the kind of folks you want to disappoint… These folks make Capone look like a choir boy. Before the ink was dry on Obama’s fake Certification of Live Birth (not to be confused with an actual birth certificate), Obamanation was off to confiscate control of banking, insurance, energy and auto manufacturing. Before they knew what was happening, the American people woke up the proud new owner of Government Motors and $13 Trillion in debt. But it wasn’t until Obamanation tried to confiscate control of 1/7th of the US economy by nationalizing the private American health care industry that the people took to the streets in protest." Full article at source
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POPSFinancial foolishness... The US economy is far to beholden to financial markets and Wall street. The problems started with deregulation under Reagan, and culminated with deregulation under Clinton (the Gramm-Leach-Biley act of 1999) -- allowing inv banks, ins. co's and comm banks to create 'whatever' new investment vehicles they wanted... all outside ANY government regulation. We saw what happened: they gave mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, know that they could slice-n-dice 'em and sell them off before they went sour. Now we, the taxpayer, are paying to keep these same institutions afloat. I only hope for some sensible regulation.
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POPSThe CEO Hostage Crisis At Bank of America BofA officials tell me that the SEIU agitation took off after Lewis refused a sit-down with the union's leaders. "We think Ken Lewis is bad for the company and the economy, and we also think that as long as you have a system where workers can't speak out, you can't fix the economy," said Stephen Lerner, an SEIU assistant president. Somehow, it's a little difficult to believe that the SEIU's main goal is the recovery of the financial system. A BofA spokesman says, "We think Bank of America is a model employer, and we don't see any advantage of associates being represented by a third party." The feds, that is, have de-facto control of the bank (as they do of Citigroup and much of the rest of the industry). And that control is being exercised by the Obama administration -- the most union-friendly in decades. The SEIU alone spent $60 million to elect this president. But so far the union doesn't have much to show for a return on that investment.
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POPSTime to put "Wealth On Trial" again? The Pecora hearings resulted in 12,000 pages of transcripts that are still a primary source for historians of the Great Crash, and important New Deal legislation that for the first time regulated the high-handed, free-wheeling banking industry and protected the public from its excesses -- including the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (which established the Securities and Exchange Commission -- Pecora was one of its first commissioners) and the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933, which erected a firewall between commercial and investment banking -- a wall torn down during the Clinton administration, leading to much of our trouble today.
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POPSCultural Dictionary More - "The dictionary's chapter on ethics reflects, the agency suggests, the deep disillusionment in once-blue-chip institutions, and so, "Goldman Sacked," which refers to someone being canned from the investment banking business. "Madoffing" means scamming someone. To be "Spitzer'd" is to be caught doing a hypocritical act (by the FBI, maybe?). It's worth noting that the disgraced and hapless executive is quickly becoming a stock character in advertising." My favorite is "Land it like Sully."
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POPSGreed Frosted With Recklessness "In short the current global financial crisis is a story about people who thought they were the smartest guys in the room and who turned out to be remarkably naïve, reckless or, in some cases, downright stupid."
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POPSOn the Fed. and Screwing the Real Economy If you understand that large scale influxes of artificial wealth inflates the bubble that is harmful to us all, you cannot deny that the Community Reinvestment Act put on steroids accomplishes the same results. Additionally, how is it not clear that continued massive intervention into the healing process will only screw it up worse. Especially if they are attempting to maintain levels of unearned property ownership that caused the crisis. You are only worse off when you punish the sector that could return to wealth creation which would bring opportunity to us all. I notice that the more one HONESTLY tries to understand the economics behind all this, the more you have to realize the ultimate anti-capitalistic world Obama and his handlers are striving to put into place. Then recognizing the tactics of strong-arming, propaganda, and suppression it all falls into place.
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POPSFeinstein Steers $25Billion Federal Dollars To Husband's Company Spokesmen for the FDIC, Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum's firm told The Times that there was no connection between the legislation and the contract signed Nov. 13, and that the couple didn't even know about CBRE's business with FDIC until after it was awarded. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars. About the same time of the contract award, Mr. Blum's private investment firm reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it and related affiliates had purchased more than 10 million new shares in CBRE. The shares were purchased for the going price of $3.77; CBRE's stock closed Monday at $5.14.
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POPSCongress Should Wear T-Shirts with Endorsements Lawmakers should fork over all campaign contributions received from TARP-taking banks. These institutions doled out $114 million in the past year for lobbying and campaign contributions, according to CRP. Add that to the $50 million in AIG bonuses already returned by recipients, and we could put this whole bonus kerfuffle to rest. It turns out the $114 million was money well spent. It bought the banks $295.2 billion in TARP money, a return of more than 258,000 percent. Who needs off-balance-sheet vehicles when the government can provide that kind of return on investment?
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POPSGordon Brown Wants UK To Be The International Financial Center For Sharia Products This would threaten free business if they are in conflict with Sharia Law. As Melanie Phillips puts it: Acceptance of Sharia finance furthers the Islamist objective of gradually legitimising Islamic Sharia Law more generally in the west (...). The most important point to grasp is that Islam recognises no authority superior to sharia. http://www.melaniephillips.com/ To know more about Sharia finance, check out the Shariah Finance Blog. http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/
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POPSCap-And-Trade Means Energy Bubble These CEOs don’t seem to realize the impact of cap-and-trade could have on their own companies. At the 2007 shareholder meeting of USCAP member Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of construction equipment, CEO James Owens confessed he had not conducted a cost-benefit analysis of emissions regulation on his business. If he had, Owens would have learned that cap-and-trade would specifically harm the coal industry — a key Caterpillar customer. ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva has also turned a blind eye to the long-term. Under cap and trade, his company’s investment in Canadian oil sands, which release about three times the amount more carbon dioxide than traditional oil, would become more costly. Furthermore, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a USCAP partner, is currently taking legal action to block the processing of oil sands at a ConocoPhillips refinery. As cap-and-trade policy raises prices and reduces jobs, America will slip further into economic chaos. Ou
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POPSWas There An Electronic Run On The Banks? $224 billion in 7 days is a huge sum of money, but it’s nowhere near the $550 billion in an hour reported by Rep. Kanjorski. RealClearMarkets further reports the size of the total money market investment market: Assets of institutional money-market funds dropped by $173 billion to nearly $2.2 trillion over the seven days ended Wednesday, while assets in retail money-market funds grew by nearly $4.3 billion in the same period to $1.2 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute. According to this report, the total of money market investments, including both retail (personal banking) and institutional (banking by pension funds and investment banks) markets, comes to $3.4 trillion — less than the $5½ trillion Kanjorski claims the Fed estimated was going to be lost. RealClearMarkets’ numbers are confirmed by the New York Times report from Sept 19, the Friday after the Thursday events Kanjorski describes.
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POPSObama to Nominate Nobel Winner for Energy Secretary To give you an idea of how drastic a change this would be, Bush's Energy Sec. is Samuel Bodman , a veteran of both the investment banking and chemical industries -- i.e., someone who's never even worked in the energy sector before. Chu's nomination will be what's known as "getting it right."
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