Tag Archives: Huffington Post

A “Good Deal” For Who?

18 Saturday Dec 2010

Posted by in budget, Congress, economy, Obama, Politics, Taxes, Unemployment

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Now that President Obama’s “good deal” has been signed, sealed, and delivered thanks to the warm and fuzzy “spirit of compromise” floating around D.C. this holiday season, let’s take a look at who got goodies in their Christmas stocking and who got a lump of coal.

Republicans went into the lame-duck session with a letter to Majority Leader Reid, signed by all 42 Republican senators, stating that “any bill brought up before votes to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and a stop-gap funding bill to keep the government operating will be filibustered.” Those were their two main objectives—tax cut extension and stop-gap funding. They went two for two. As a bonus they also got a lower than expected estate tax.

The president gave them the first, after being, ahem, “forced” into it. Just as an aside, does anyone else find it strange that the tax cut extension got more votes in a Democratic-controlled House that the original Bush tax cuts did in a Republican-controlled one in 2001, 277–-240? But I digress.

Reid gave them the second on Thursday after another episode of Lucy and the football in which Republicans (surprise, surprise) reneged on their support for the omnibus spending bill. The result will likely be a short-term continuing resolution lasting a couple of months. At which time Republicans will control the House and demand ransom for their next “hostage”—the debt ceiling limit. Dave Dayen at Firedoglake:

“Republicans will have a chance in February of next year to set spending levels…And if anyone thinks that the result will not be a slashing of vital social safety net spending, take a look at how Reid folded last night, trading other priorities. The “stimulus” from the tax cut deal is GONE. It’ll be gone by February, at least. Republicans are fulfilling the Norquistian promise of lowering taxes massively, and then using that lack of revenue as a pretext to cut social spending. That’s what’ll happen in February. And the debt limit vote provides just another opportunity.”

But, as Laura Bassett at the Huffington Post points out, the cuts to safety net spending won’t have to wait until Republicans take over the House. Along with the working poor and the 99ers, there were others stiffed by the grand compromise:

“…federal funds for the Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF) program have entirely dried up for the first time since 1996, leaving states with an average of 15 percent less federal funding for the coming year to help an ever-increasing number of needy families.

TANF, the federal program that replaced welfare under the Clinton Administration, provides a lifeline for families and workers who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits. According to a new report by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, “more homeless families will go without shelter, fewer low-wage workers will receive help with child care expenses, and fewer families involved with the child welfare system will receive preventive services” now that Congress has passed legislation that will end funding for the TANF Contingency Fund in 2011.”

Other parts of this “deal” are that the GOP will supposedly allow the passage of DADT repeal and START. Don’t be surprised if Lucy makes another appearance before that gets done. Republicans also promised to allow the confirmation of four of President Obama’s nominees to the federal bench. Four out of 38.

What shrewd traders.

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Six of One, Half Dozen of Another

16 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by in Congress, economy, Politics, Social Security, Taxes, Unemployment

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This concludes another chapter in the ongoing saga of “It Doesn’t Matter Who You Vote For, You Get the Same Thing.” When all the smoke has been blown, and all the posturing and pontificating is done, this is what we get.

We get Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who once upon a time called the extension of the tax cuts “legislative extortion” voting yesterday to “pay the ransom.” Get used to paying, Sen. Brown. You’ll be doing a lot of that in the next two years. Next up, trading cuts in Medicare, Social Security, education, and whatever else the extortionists ask for, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

We get self-contradictory nonsense like this from Sen. Franken in the Huffington Post:

“Extending the excessive Bush tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires will explode our deficit over the next two years without doing anything to help our economy. I think it’s simply bad policy.

But…

…I got into this line of work because I wanted to stand up for Minnesota families trying to put food on the table and build a better life for their kids. And, for them, the only thing worse than a bad deal would be no deal at all. That’s why I voted yes yesterday — and why I will continue my fight for economic policies that create jobs, address our deficit problem, and build new opportunities for Minnesota.”

So even though this is a “bad deal” that will explode the deficit and won’t do anything to help the economy, Sen. Franken vows to fight for policies that address the deficit and create jobs. Sometime in the future, that is. Not now. Just trust him. By the way, senator, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

Sen. Franken is also “taking the president at his word that he will fight harder to put an end to these wasteful tax breaks in 2012 than he did in 2010.” Hold on to that dream, Al.

We get Majority Leader Reid calling passage of the package a “tremendous accomplishment,” and saying that it will “cut taxes for middle class families and small businesses, and ensure that Americans who are still looking for work will continue to have they safety net they rely on to make ends meet.”

Except for the 99ers, they’re SOL. And except for the working poor who will have their taxes raised while the “middle-class” folks like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon get a $1.179 million cut. And except for the deal laying the groundwork for cutting Social Security. Other than that it’s a tremendous accomplishment.

So next election, put all the names on a dartboard, close your eyes and throw. Democrat, Republican, whatever. Six of one, a half dozen of the other.

The REAL Sign of the Apocalypse

30 Friday Jul 2010

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From the Huffington Post:

Mr. LaHaye is mistaken. A newly-discovered, ancient manuscript has recently come into my possession that foretells the actual sign of the end of the world. It reads as follows:

“And these shall be the signs when thou shalt knowest that the end of the world is near.

A child shall be born on an island in the midst of the Great Ocean (allegedly). He shall grow in wisdom and in stature in the city on the shores of the Lake that is called Michigan where he shall organizeth the community in which he dwelleth.

He shall achieve a great and miraculous victory against the lioness of the tribe of Clinton, and shall ascend to the throne which hath previously been ordained to be the sole dominion of those of the Caucus region.

This shall cause much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Caucasians, and shall bringeth forth many false prophets from under every rock and low place who professeth to be followers of Christ but acteth not in accordance with his teachings.

And the false prophets and hypocrites shall prophecy that the ascension of the child from the island in the midst of the Great Ocean (allegedly) to the throne previously held by the Caucasians is the sign of the apocalypse. But the end of the age is not yet nigh.

There shall arise a woman from the North Country. She shall be dim of wit yet big of mouth, and she shall say many strange and confounding things and shall give much refudiation to many. When this woman from the North Country ascendeth to the throne, then thou shalt surely know that the end of the world has come.

So it is written, so it shall be.”

Why Tim Geithner Opposes Elizabeth Warren as Head of the CFPB

20 Tuesday Jul 2010

Posted by in bailout, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Obama administration, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Elizabeth Warren should be a no-brainer as President Obama’s choice to head the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). She is a long-time advocate for the rights of consumers, the person most responsible for the Bureau’s inclusion in the recently-passed financial reform legislation, and its most notable and vocal supporter. She has this crazy notion that a consumer protection agency should actually…you know…protect consumers against the abusive practices of the big banks.

As chair of the TARP oversight committee Warren regularly clashed with what those banks consider to be in their best interests, as well as those in the administration who make a habit of carrying the banker’s water, namely Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Which is why it wasn’t surprising when Huffington Post reported last week that Geithner opposed Warren’s nomination.

Then came this, a piece by John Talbott (also in the Huffington Post) on Sunday. The reason for the treasury secretary’s opposition:

“The [financial reform] bill has been written to put a great deal of power as to how strongly it is implemented in the hands of its regulators, some of which remain to be chosen. The bank lobby will work incredibly hard to see that Warren, the person most responsible for initiating and fighting for the idea of a consumer financial protection group, is denied the opportunity to head it.

But this is not the only reason that Geithner is opposed to Warren’s nomination. I believe Geithner sees the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as a threat to the very scheme he has utilized to date to hide bank losses, thus keeping the banks solvent and out of bankruptcy court and their existing management teams employed and well-paid.”

The “scheme” to which Talbott refers began with Geithner’s predecessor as Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, and is being continued by Geithner and his partner in crime in the Obama administration, Larry Summers. In short it goes like this:

The $700 billion in TARP money was originally supposed to go to get bad loans, the so-called toxic assets, of the bank’s books. Immediately after TARP was passed, Paulson did a 180 and decided to use it as a direct cash infusion into the big banks rather than buying bad loans. (Nothing to do with him being a former Goldman CEO, I’m sure).

That left the banks with trillions of dollars of toxic assets still on the books, where they remain today. Geithner’s plan is for the banks to:

“…earn their way out of their solvency problems over time so the banks are continuing to slowly write off their problem loans but at a rate that will take years, if not decades, to clean up the problem.

And this is where defeat of the nomination of Elizabeth Warren becomes critical for Geithner. For Geithner’s strategy to work, the banks have to find increasing sources of profitability in their business segments to balance out their annual loan loss recognition from their existing bad loans in an environment in which they continue to recognize new losses in prime residential mortgages, commercial real estate lending, sovereign debt investments, bridge loans to private equity groups, leverage buyout lending and credit card defaults.

The banks have made no secret as to where they will find this increase in cash flow. They intend to soak their small retail customers, their consumer and small business borrowers, their credit card holders and their small depositors with increased costs and fees and are continuing many of the bad mortgage practices that led to the crisis

[…]

It is exactly these types of unwarranted fees on small consumers and poorly designed products that Elizabeth Warren will fight against as head of the new consumer finance protection group. And it is why Geithner sees her as so threatening. Unless the banks are allowed to raise fees and charges on their smaller consumer customers, Geithner’s and Summers’ scheme for dealing with the banking crisis by hiding problem loans permanently on the banks’ balance sheets will be exposed for what it is, an attempt at preserving the jobs of current bank executives at the cost of dragging out this recovery needlessly for years in the future.”

After much thought and careful consideration (which took about 1.5 seconds) I have a suggestion for how President Obama can resolve this conflict. Warren’s in, Geithner’s out. Problem solved.

Would the GOP Deliberately Sabotage the Economy? Is There Any Doubt?

24 Thursday Jun 2010

Posted by in Congress, Conservatives, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, Republicans

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Commenting on a Huffington Post piece about how Republicans, and Ben Nelson (excuse my redundancy), appear poised to kill the tax-extenders bill in the Senate, Steve Benen at Washington Monthly writes:

“In the real world, this means millions of jobless Americans will lose their already-modest benefits, and hundreds of thousands of workers will be laid off over the next year, including teachers, police officers, and firefighters. All of this will happen because Republicans are more concerned about the deficit — a deficit they created under Bush/Cheney — than the economy.

It’s unpleasant to think about, and I really hope it’s not true, but it may be time for a discussion about whether GOP lawmakers are trying to deliberately sabotage the economy to help their midterm election strategy.”

What’s to discuss? It’s true. Of course Republicans are trying to deliberately sabotage the economy to help their mid-term election strategy, as well as their 2012 presidential election strategy. Republicans in Congress don’t care about deficits (see Dick Cheney) or the debt, except when they’re out of power. When they were in control of everything in D.C. from 2001-2007 what happened? Were there even any cursory attempts to rein in the deficit and pay down the debt?

Quite the contrary. With 2 wars and tax cuts and Medicare Part D, all on the credit card, the debt exploded.

You bet your ass the GOP wants the economy in the tank, as far in as possible. If unemployment is double what it is now and we go into a double-dip recession, or in their wettest dreams a depression, the champagne corks will be popping and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ will be blaring from the speakers in Michael Steele’s office. Do you think they care about the pain and suffering it would cause the American people? They care about one thing and one thing only—power. That’s it. If the “small people” have to bear the brunt of that quest, so be it.

Of course once they get it, their faux concern about the deficit and excessive spending will go out the door as they come in. Just like it did before.

Gulf Oil Spill “Worse Than the Exxon Valdez”

02 Sunday May 2010

Posted by in Politics, Uncategorized

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From the Hufington Post:

“The Gulf Coast spill will have eclipsed the Exxon Valdez in terms of total gallons of oil before the weekend is over — making it the largest oil spill in U.S. history — according to calculations made by oceanographer Ian MacDonald after studying aerial Coast Guard photos taken earlier in the week.

MacDonald, a professor at Florida State University who counts “oil and gas development” among his areas of expertise, stopped short of comparing the Deepwater Horizon spill to that of the Alaskan oil tanker, but said Saturday, “The spill is growing. I’m comfortable saying that the size and extent of this slick is 10 million gallons.”

Given that just over a million gallons are leaking into the Gulf per day, according to MacDonald’s calculations, the spill will shortly top the Exxon Valdez’s estimated 11-million-gallon spill.”

With that in mind, consider that the effects of the Valdez spill are still being felt—20 years later:

“The amount of Exxon Valdez oil remaining substantially exceeds the sum total of all previous oil pollution on beaches in Prince William Sound…This Exxon Valdez oil is decreasing at a rate of 0-4% per year, with only a 5% chance that the rate is as high as 4%. At this rate, the remaining oil will take decades and possibly centuries to disappear entirely.

…surveys outside Prince William Sound have documented lingering oil also on the Kenai Peninsula and the Katmai coast, over 450 miles away.”

Now take this:


And multiply it by this X 10,000:


How’s that drill, baby, drill workin’ out for ya?

“Put Up or Shut Up” Time on Too Big To Fail

01 Saturday May 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Goldman Sachs, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Now that the Senate Republicans have abandoned their filibuster (after perusing the public opinion polls on Wall Street and observing the tap-dancing by Goldman Sachs execs at the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations hearings, I assume) financial reform legislation is set for debate.

Richard Eskow at the Huffington Post has a one-question test we can apply to our elected representatives to tell if they are serious about reforming the financial system or just being a posturing, pontificating blowhard—something that comes naturally to most politicians.

“This quick, easy-to-use test can be applied from the comfort of your own home (if you still have one), from that third job you’ve got to work every evening (too bad you can’t help the kids with homework anymore) … why you can even use it while you’re waiting on line to collect the last of your unemployment benefits!

As long as there’s a television droning away in the waiting area while you wait for that job interview, or a newspaper somebody left behind on that park bench, as long as you can learn how your politician voted, you can learn whether he’s really on your side or just another bank lackey.

Here’s the test: Will they vote to break up the big banks or not? It’s as simple as that … really.

…Yesterday Sens. Ted Kaufman and Sherrod Brown officially introduced an amendment that limits the size of banks and the amount of risk they can take. Under this amendment, no bank could become either so big or so leveraged that its collapse could threaten the economy… An identical amendment was introduced in the House by Reps Brad Miller, Keith Ellison, Steve Cohen, and Ben Chandler.

…What’s striking about the proposal is how simple and effective it is. No bank could hold more than 10% of the nation’s deposits, nor could it leverage (take risks with) sums that amount to more than 2% of the GDP.

What’s also striking is how few institutions it would affect. Only the three biggest banks would be affected by the size limit, and the cap on liabilities would only affect an estimate nine institutions or so.

These amendments offer our representatives in the House and Senate a simple choice: Support a safer and more rational banking system, or be counted among those whose votes are being swayed by the influence of Wall Street money. And they give the rest of us an invaluable tool. We’ll be able to see whether our leaders really means those words about “too big to fail” and “no more bailouts” by seeing whether or not they vote for these amendments.

If they do, they’ve passed the test. If they don’t, they’ve failed. Simple as that.

Here’s the greatest benefit this new test offers to frustrated voters everywhere. It lets us say to politicians, once and for all, on one of the most crucial issues of our day, those words every citizen longs to say to a long-winded public servant:

Put up or shut up.”

Incompetence and Regulatory Capture at Washington Mutual

29 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, Financial Crisis, financial reform, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Any questions about why financial reform legislation must have strict provisions for enforcement not left up to the discretion of the so-called “regulators” should be cleared up by David Heath’s extensive piece at the Huffington Post about incompetence, corruption, and regulatory capture at Washington Mutual:

“A recent Senate inquiry offered a rare peek into the secret world of bank examiners. What it revealed was that regulators had stopped regulating.

In the case of Washington Mutual, regulators found all sorts of trouble, from lax lending standards to high delinquency rates on loans, and yet failed to prevent the biggest bank failure in history.

Starting in 2003, examiners for the Office of Thrift Supervision found 545 problems at the bank. But the agency left it up to WaMu to track its own compliance with examiners’ recommendations, and took no formal action against the bank until it was too late.

[…]

A central lesson from the failure of Washington Mutual was that a system set up to prevent what happened utterly failed. For all the talk of reform, Congress isn’t addressing the problem of regulators who fail to do their job.

Regulators routinely deferred to bankers and market forces and engaged in petty squabbles over who had authority over the bank. So the question now is: Can Congress fix ineffective regulators themselves?

[…]

OTS’s own fortunes were heavily tied to Washington Mutual’s. The bank paid fees that amounted to 15 percent of OTS’s budget – more than any other financial institution under its watch. So it was in the OTS’s interest to make sure WaMu survived as a thrift, a bank that specializes in home mortgages.”

Can Congress fix it? Yes they can. Will they? Ay, there’s the rub.

The Growing Financial Sector and the Shrinking Middle-Class

28 Wednesday Apr 2010

Posted by in economy, Politics, Wall Street

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Arianna Huffington wrote an article at Huffington Post yesterday about the loss of our manufacturing base, the coinciding shrinking of the middle-class, and how the financial sector has become an increasingly disproportionate part of our economy. In her words, “the share of our economy devoted to making things of value is shrinking, while the share devoted to valuing made up things (credit swap derivatives, anyone?) is expanding.”

A few points from the article to consider:

“Since the recession began in late 2007, we’ve lost 8.4 million jobs. Over 2 million of those were manufacturing jobs, the kind of jobs that have traditionally delivered American families into the middle class — and kept them there. We lost 1.2 million manufacturing jobs in 2009 alone.

…In 1950, manufacturing accounted for more than 30 percent of non-farm employment. As of last year, it’s down to 10 percent. Indeed, one-third of all our manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2000.

…between 1973 and 1985, the financial industry’s share of domestic corporate profits topped out at 16 percent. In the 1990s it spanned between 21 percent and 30 percent. Just before the financial crisis hit, it stood at 41 percent.

…One out of every six blue-collar workers has lost his or her job in the latest recession — a number commensurate to what happened during the Great Depression.

…it’s not just manufacturing and lower skilled service jobs that are disappearing. According to the Hackett Group, companies with revenues of $5 billion and over are expected to take an estimated 350,000 jobs offshore in the next two years alone — nearly half in IT, and the rest in finance, procurement and human resources.

…Accenture now employs more people in India than in America. And IBM is headed in the same direction.

And the horizon looks even darker. A Harvard Business School study found that up to 42 percent of U.S. jobs — more than 50 million of them — are vulnerable to being sent offshore.”

The conclusion is this:

“It’s not too late to change course. The financialization of our economy didn’t just happen. Decisions were made that made it possible — and decisions can be unmade. But first we need to decide, as a country, what kind of economy we want to have: one that’s good for middle class families or one that’s built to enrich Wall Street.

It’s time to start separating the real economy from the casino economy.”

Quote of the Day: Simon Johnson

03 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Simon Johnson, MIT professor, Huffington Post contributor, co-founder of Baseline Scenario, and author of the new book 13 Bankers, on why it is imperative that “Too Big To Fail” becomes a thing of the past:

“You can’t have a  market economy if some people have get out of jail free cards.”Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Simon Johnson on the Today Show“, posted with vodpod