USA Today says that indeed the Wisconsin State Troopers are seeking the Democratic leader of the Senate. Arrested voter. The Wisconsin Senate Democrats went AWOL to protest the cutting of benefits to state workers and the gutting of the their rights as members of unions. . . . → Read More: Wisconsin protesters sought by police… the State’s Senators.
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It seems according to Reuters, that Congress is ever divided. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has failed to produce a consensus explanation of the 2007-2009 banking debacle, as it was asked to do in May 2009. Not two partisan viewpoints, nay that would be mere bickering, we will have three reports (or Thrice, if you follow Conan…). While I love debate that makes both our legislators and the people who have elected them to represent them think hard on the issues, the lack of closure in many of the current debates along what Reuters describes as familiar Washington “ideological fault lines” is worrying for the Republic in my humble opinion. . . . → Read More: The bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people – Oscar Wilde Reading an interview with Gary Gorton of the Minneapolis Fed. (Hat tip to Naked Capitalism). He makes some interesting points regarding the securitization industry, its relationship with the repo market, how when collateral was deemed untrustworthy it led to hair-cutting and then full panic. Side comments on the need for new measurements to size the securitization industry, efforts to build the trust of . . . → Read More: Interview with Gary Gorton: new theory of debt, collateral, repo, crisis and regulation The NYT had an article on people who actually got a job this year. The bottom line: you need to lower your standards. The path to getting a new job is hard and jobs are not what you wanted. The closing quote: [Adam Kowal whose] hourly wage has fallen from $15 an hour at the warehouse to $10.50 an hour washing dishes and . . . → Read More: Your desire for a future job? Pretty farfetched… I really liked and enjoyed Mike Konczal’s piece on the losing well in politcal terms. It seems to me that we were hoodwinked into believing that Obama was a progressive, or even a liberal. When all that he has shown to be is a politician focusing on the short term, what can I achieve. Mike makes the point in relation to immigration policy, . . . → Read More: Losing badly The Nation has an article by Robert C. Lieberman on Why the Rich are Getting Richer. I particularly like this quote: Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced industrial democracy and by conventional measures comparable to that in countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, and Turkmenistan. There are many lists out there for projections for 2011. I have decided to do the anti-pattern of a projection (the anti-projection?) with a discussion of what I think will occur and what I would rather see happen in 2011. Facts finally trump lies cleverly told and sold. I published a piece on the neologism ‘Agnotology,’ a word to describe the purposeful sowing . . . → Read More: Anti-Projections for 2011 If you thought that the financial plutocrats have been tamed, and that a new boom and bust cycle will be mitigated by future government intervention and regulation; Bloomberg lays it all out in astonishingly clear rhetoric in an article by Christine Harper Out of Lehman’s Ashes Wall Street Gets Most of What It Wants : The U.S. government, promising to make the system . . . → Read More: Wall Street Gets What It Wants… Is it only me or is this a weird report? Both of the protagonists are majority owned by the US taxpayer, and yet they settle debts in order to hide the disclosure of the true amounts of bad loans which Ally (the bank formerly known as GMAC) stuffed into RMBS’ which have been sold to Fannie Mae. Is this just a way for the US government and its hedge fund partners in Ally to clean up the books and lower risk so as to polish up the IPO? As a result neither Ally nor Fannie Mae need to make adjustments for the crap mortgages on their balance sheets … at this time. . . . → Read More: Robbing Peter to pay Paul – Ally pays Fannie for stuffing them with bad loans It’s funny how the mind works. I was reading on line tonight about weather… one of my favorite pastimes. And I followed a link about the potential for a white Christmas in Altanta and I read there: It won’t happen overnight, but metro Atlanta is expected to receive its first white Christmas since the Chester Arthur administration. And I searched on Chester Arthur, . . . → Read More: Everything comes back to the same thing |
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