Tag: ek Politics

Maybe we’ll get a perp walk after all. U.S. Targets RBS, J.P. Morgan Executives in Criminal Probes By Aruna Viswanatha, Devlin Barrett, and Christopher M. Matthews, Wall Street Journal Nov. 17, 2015 1:57 p.m. ET Federal prosecutors are actively pursuing criminal cases against executives from Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and J.P. Morgan Chase …

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ek, how can you possibly be so callous? Does not your blood boil and you soul cry out for vengance? Look, I’m an avid war gamer and have been for decades so I not only appreciate firepower, I admire it in the way only someone who’s never, ever worn a uniform or even owned a …

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So as part of my recent Voir Dire I had to fill out a form that asked me- Son, have you ever been arrested No kidding! Now I suppose that’s a reasonable enough question since it might disclose your attitude toward police testimony (they’re professional liars and yes, I have taken the steel bracelet ride), …

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So this morning I woke and Yahoo had placed an ad from some… whatever, in my mailbox, and it wasn’t even possible to mark it as the spam it was. So I looked at it and and after that I was able to register an opinion- I do not want to see more ads like …

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Well, River Song (that’s Melody Pond to you, bub) couldn’t do it so what makes you think it’s even possible? First of all there’s what I call the “mucking about” paradox which says that if time travel is possible and you can alter reality, humans, being irresistibly prone to mucking about, will do so until …

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If you’re a careful reader you know that I don’t exactly worship at the altar of Krugthulu.  He has good ideas about economic stimulus but willfully misses the point of Modern Monetary Theory, until you can demonstrate inflation the amount of fiat currency you circulate is meaningless, even though his research and analysis point to exactly that conclusion.

Still it’s useful and handy in some cases to appeal to the authority of his Nobel Prize.  Yes it’s a fallacy but arguments are won by rhetoric, not logic.  I quote him when I agree and mostly ignore him when I don’t.

One thing I’ve never gotten is his infatuation with Benjamin Bernanke (or for that matter Larry Summers).  They all went to the same schools and graduate seminars and had the same teachers so there is familiarity and a collegial aspect I suppose counts for a lot in the halls of Academe and, to be fair, much of what they are saying now that they’re out of the Beltway Bubble of Madness is perfectly sound Samuelson Economics (not that he was particularly Keynesian mind you, just that he had the intellectual integrity not to argue with the proven results of fiscal stimulus).

But I can’t help but remember that when these two cowards (Bernanke and Summers) had a chance in power to put into action the policies that they now say they favored all along they cravenly failed to do so.

Thanks for nothing assholes.

Ben has a new volume of preening mental masturbation out that prompted this assessment from Yves Smith (who is likewise wrong on some things, I only quote her when she’s right, meaning of course that she agrees with me).

Bernanke’s Cockroaches

by Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

Posted on October 6, 2015

The idea that Bernanke did a praiseworthy job has been widely debunked. Bernanke continued the “Greenspan put” that stoked speculation all across the credit markets, to the point that anyone who was paying attention had heard of the “wall of liquidity” and massively compressed credit spreads by mid 2006. The Fed did even less to enforce the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act meant to curb subprime lending than the bank-cronyistic OCC did.

As the crisis unfolded, the Fed failed to take the risk posed by the credit default swaps market seriously, even though CDS contagion risk was the most important reason for bailing out Bear Stearns, otherwise too small to be deemed worthy of a rescue. Instead, the Fed went into “mission accomplished” mode after Bear’s bailout.

Worse, after the crisis, the Fed consistently pursued policies to save banks, in particular the bank executive incumbents, and let the cost of the crisis fall on Main Street, particularly workers and homeowners in the bottom 90%. Did Bernanke say a peep when the big financial firms that had just been saved from certain death went to pay their executives and staffs record bonuses in 2009 and 2010 rather than rebuild their equity bases? The Fed was so deeply complicit that it didn’t even attempt a private scolding.

And the central bank was fully on board with the Treasury’s treatment of the mortgage-backed securities market as too big to fail, which amounted to a second, stealth bailout. The refusal to pressure banks to do principal modifications resulted in unnecessary foreclosures, and a massive loss of wealth, not just to homeowners but also to investors in mortgage backed securities. The Fed joined the Treasury and OCC in all of the various bank “get out of liability for almost free” mortgage and servicer settlements. It was thus a full, albeit quiet, partner with the Geithner “foam the runway” program of wrecking borrowers’ lives for the dubious purpose of preserving bank profits.

Bernanke apparently feels compelled to up his game in self-hagiography a bit, since at least some of the public recognizes that he’s an arsonist trying to take credit for putting out a fire, except the fire-fighting wasn’t all that well done, since the rubble is still smoldering years later.

…

Bernanke conveniently conflates bailing out institutions (which was necessary) with the issue of responsibility, as in holding individuals accountable. The refusal to replace boards and top executives, particularly at institutions with obviously weak leadership (Citigroup and Bank of America were top of the list) was indefensible. Even if there was not enough readily locatable recently retired bank executives to fill the ranks of all the wobbly banks, forcing changes upon Citi and Bank of America would have sent a very powerful message to the rest. And we’ve argued at length, for years, that there was no dearth of legal theories that were simply not even attempted as far as prosecuting bank executives was concerned, starting with the one designed for the task, Sarbanes Oxley.

But what pathetic new line do we get from Bernanke? His feelers were hurt when he read a bumper sticker? People lost their businesses, their jobs, their homes as a result of the crisis, and we are supposed to feel sorry for his wounded feelings when he is called out in the tamest terms possible?

This illustrates how insulated and preening our ruling classes have become, that they are unable even to take mild criticism, let alone a remotely accurate assessment of the job they’ve done. By contrast, as Jim Collins found in his book on true top performers, Good to Great, the heads of those companies did the opposite of the diseased norms exhibited by Bernanke: they gave credit for success to their teams, and took full blame for failure.

The time is past to deal with these intellignce-insulting efforts at revisionist history. When I read a new, improved set of excuses from people like Bernanke, I feel like I’ve walked into my kitchen and turned on the lights after the exterminator paid a visit, only to find cockroaches scuttling all over my counter yet again.

Donald Trump Says His Tax Cut Will Lead to 6% GDP Growth and President Obama Says TPP Will Boost Growth

Dean Baker, Center for Economic Policy Research

Published: 05 October 2015

The most favorable positive assessment comes from the Peterson Institute. It projects that the agreement would boost growth by 0.03 percentage points annually over the next dozen years. This would mean, for example, that if growth would have been 2.2 percent without the TPP, it would be 2.23 percent with the TPP. Other projections have been lower. For example, an analysis by the United States Department of Agriculture concluded that the gains would be too small to measure.

It is also worth noting that none of these studies took into account the negative impact on growth from the higher drug prices that would be the result of the stronger protectionist measures in the TPP. The United States currently spends more than $400 billion a year on prescription drugs. This amount will almost certainly increase in both the U.S. and elsewhere as a result of stronger patent and related protections in the TPP. Higher drug prices will pull money out of people’s pockets, leaving less to spend in other areas, thereby slowing growth.

Afghan official: Hospital in airstrike was ‘a Taliban base’

By Tim Craig, Правда

October 4 at 11:20 AM

The acting governor of Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province said Sunday that Taliban fighters had been routinely firing “small and heavy” weapons from the grounds of a local hospital before it was apparently hit by a U.S. airstrike over the weekend.

In an interview, Hamdullah Danishi said the Doctors Without Borders compound was “a Taliban base” that was being used to plot and carry out attacks across the provincial capital, Kunduz city.

“The hospital campus was 100 percent used by the Taliban,” Danishi said. “The hospital has a vast garden, and the Taliban were there. We tolerated their firing for some time” before responding.

Early Saturday, in an airstrike that outraged the United Nations and humanitarian groups across the world, at least 22 people were killed and 37 others critically wounded during sustained bombardment near the hospital.

On Sunday, Doctors Without Borders strongly refuted suggestions that any Taliban fighters were inside the hospital at the time of the attack.

“The gates of the hospital were all closed so no one that is not a staff, a patient or a caretaker was inside the hospital when the bombing happened,” the group said in a statement.

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Danishi, who became acting governor last week when the former governor failed to return to Kunduz after the Taliban seized it Monday, said Taliban fighters had been firing rocket-propelled grenades from hospital grounds for days.

A longtime deputy governor, he defended the actions of coalition forces, saying the suspected airstrike had been aimed along the perimeter of hospital grounds. He said the main hospital building, where most of the causalities occurred, somehow caught fire during the airstrike but it was the not the main target.

…

Christopher Stokes, general director of Doctors Without Borders, is demanding an independent review of the incident.

“Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, [Doctors Without Borders] demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body,” Stokes said in a statement. “Relying on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient.”

Stokes also pushed back against suggestions that U.S. or Afghan troops were fired on before the airstrike occurred. He said no Doctors Without Borders staff members heard any fighting inside the hospital compound prior to the airstrike.

“We reiterate that the main hospital building, where medical personnel were caring for patients, was repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched,” Stokes said. “We condemn this attack, which constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law.”

U.S. officials said the airstrike occurred as U.S. Special Operations soldiers were accompanying Afghan troops near the hospital. Since at least mid-summer, there had been considerable tension between Afghan troops in Kunduz and hospital staff members.

In July, Doctors Without Borders issued a statement accusing Afghan troops of a “violent armed intrusion” at the now-destroyed Kunduz hospital. The group said Afghan special forces burst into the hospital July 1 and “began shooting into the air.” The soldiers then assaulted three hospital staff members before arresting three patients.

“One staff member was threatened at gunpoint by two armed men,” the group said in the July statement. “After approximately one hour, the armed men released the three patients and left the hospital compound.”

The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Why quote Goebbels?  I think it appropriate for the current regime.

C’mon, feel the Colonel Potter luv.

Fierce split over next-generation drugs holds up Pacific Rim trade talks

By David Nakamura, Washington Post

October 3 at 4:48 PM

Negotiators from the United States and 11 other nations struggled Saturday to break an impasse on an expansive Pacific Rim trade accord backed by the Obama administration, setting up what could be a make-or-break final day of talks.

Trade ministers agreed to extend their stay for a fifth day here to give themselves another shot at reaching consensus Sunday on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The largest free-trade and regulatory pact in a generation has been beset by lingering disputes that have left officials fearful that they are running out of time if they don’t close out the pact this weekend.

A fierce divide between the United States and Australia over market exclusivity for the creators of next-generation biologic drugs has stalled the talks, which officials had hoped would be wrapped up already. Differences over market access for dairy exports also remained unresolved, though officials said they were hopeful that could be bridged once the other issue was settled.

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An all-night negotiating session at the Westin hotel, where the ministers are meeting, failed to produce significant progress on the thorniest issues. The main dispute centers on how long pharmaceutical companies will maintain exclusive marketing rights to genetically engineered medicines.

I want to stop right here and point out I’ve stayed in Westin Hotels and they’re not all that.  For these guys it’s like staying in a cockroach infested America’s Best Value Inn.  In fact, upon reflection, I’ve actually stayed in that very hotel and while it’s not a rotting pile of bedbugs and filth it’s not the Plaza or Waldorf either.  To continue-

“TPP partners continue to work on creative solutions toward agreement,” said a U.S. official, who was not authorized to talk on the record and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “TPP partners are committed to finding a solution that ensures life-saving medicines are more widely available, while also creating incentives for the development of new treatments and cures.”

Congress members have warned the Obama administration not to rush the deal to completion over fears that the pact could lose crucial support on Capitol Hill if negotiators capitulate at the last moment to break the remaining impasses.

But U.S. officials are concerned that if the talks break up without a final deal, it could become more difficult to conclude negotiations in the face of pending political elections in several countries, including Canada, Japan, Peru and the United States.

I apologize to readers who expect a certain kind of detachment and objectivity.  There are times I find myself unable to provide that.

This deprives you of the customary content you’ve come to expect and I regret it.

Currently I am in therapy for many reasons, none of which are expressed anger resulting in physical violence or verbal abuse, but a big issue is my consistent sense of failure at living up to my own expectations of performance of which I am entirely and completely guilty.

I should have been able to overcome my outrage and kept consistency.

Oh, and fuck Obama and everyone else involved with the attack on the MSF Hospital in Kunduz.  Rot in Spandau you War Criminals.

Good Germans indeed.