Month: June 2011

Gobsmack of the Day

by digby

“Savvy businessman” Jamie Dimon:

JPMorgan this week finalised a $US153.6 million ($145m) settlement with the SEC over claims it misled investors about collateralised debt obligations created before the global crisis.

Dimon admits banks — including his — made mistakes.

Ever the salesman, though, he is confident JPMorgan has righted the wrongs and says it is disappointing that Wall Street’s reputation is so tarnished.

“It’s so unfair to talk about Wall Street and ethics,” he says.

“The people that we deal with a lot on Wall Street are some of the most ethical people I know.

“There are some bad apples on Wall Street. I think the military is the most extraordinary organisation but there are some bad apples in the military.

“I think universities are unbelievable but there are some bad apples in universities. I think reporters for most part are smart and hard-working people, but there are some bad apples as reporters.”

Huh? Who are these people?

Read the whole interview. You’ll find out that the housing market is doing much better and that the biggest economic problem we face is over-regulation of the banking system.

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Madman Theory

by digby

Over at Kevin Drum’s place Andy Kroll has written a piece excoriating Eric Cantor for failing to be a serious leader:

Apparently, Cantor forgot that the US is not under one-party rule, and that his constituents elected him to do what’s expected of all politicians: compromise. The Biden-led deficit negotiations are intentionally bipartisan, and to claim that Democrat-backed tax increases are non-negotiable, as Cantor believes, defies logic. It’s not negotiating if one side refuses to give any ground whatsoever. Either Cantor is more intransigent and bound to conservative orthodoxy than we thought, or he’s setting up House Speaker John Boehner to be the fall guy who cuts a deal with the Democrats on a short-term deficit reduction plan. Or both.

Maybe. Or maybe they’re just playing “good cop–bad-cop” in the great kabuki pageant known as the debt ceiling debate. (That’s when negotiators on both sides already know the outcome and everything that comes before is a matter of posturing and performing for people who have interests that are not being served by the deal.)

In any case, Atrios is right — it certainly is “negotiating” if you know for a fact that the other side is terrified of the deal falling apart (and will do anything to prevent that from happening) to walk out and hold fast once you’ve achieved your end of the bargain. In fact, that’s good negotiating. Assuming that Democrats really give a shit about raising taxes, which I doubt, they are left holding the bag (surprise!) because the “revenue enhancements” they now require oddly weren’t requested until the cuts had been agreed to.

Kroll concludes with this, which I think is sort of cute:

What’s clear is that any deficit reduction plan must include new revenue of some kind. After all, it was partly the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that got us into this mess in the first place. Not filling that $2.6-trillion hole with new revenue would be madness.

Sez who? The GOP Madmen? Evidently Kroll has never heard of the Madman Theory:

Nixon explained the strategy to his White House Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman:

I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, “for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button”and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.

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Perhaps the Democrats really truly wanted a clean bill but were persuaded that the Republicans would meet them halfway if they agreed to negotiate. But they really should have anticipated that there was a possibility that the Tea Party freak show would leave them with no choice but to give in or call their bluff. Indeed, it’s so obvious (and so foreshadowed by the public statements of all parties) that I simply don’t believe they didn’t anticipate it. Each side has something to gain by that pretense — Obama gets his Geithnerian cuts without having to take responsibility for it and Boehner gets to bring back some serious scalps to his teabaggers. But it seems obvious to me that they both wanted the same things from this deal and knew what the end game would be before they started — to raise the debt ceiling and enact large cuts in spending.

Obama said last night at the DNC LGBT event in New York:

There is an important debate in Washington right now about cutting the deficit. And it is absolutely critical that we cut the deficit. Like families all across America, government has to live within its means. And I’m prepared to bring down our deficit by trillions of dollars — that’s “trillions” with a “t.”

He says he plans to do this without sacrificing winning the future, so that’s good.

Whatever the case about these debt ceiling “negotiations”, there are only two ways to look at how we got to this place: The Democrats are either naive little children who have no idea what they are dealing with or they were well aware (due to their numerous public and private statements to that effect) that the Republicans had every intention of raising the debt ceiling but were more than willing to let them deploy the Madman strategy in order to get those “trillions with a t” in spending cuts without being the bad guy. There is no other option.

It’s not that the Democrats or Republicans are good or bad negotiators. It’s that beyond how to sell the outcome to their respective constituencies, there aren’t any real negotiations going on at all.

Update: No More Mister Nice Blog has an interesting observation on this piece as well. I would just add that in the Village this is referred to as “holding hands and jumping over the cliff together.”

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Winning the future one “hen of the woods” at a time

by digby

Gotta get that billion somewhere and to paraphrase Willie Sutton, this is where the money is:

Last night Obama headed to the Upper East Side to wine and dine Wall Street.

The DNC fundraiser at tony restaurant Daniel cost attendees $35,800 each, and a source told Ben White at Morning Money that the event netted $2.4 million.

So his calculations were that at least 67 financiers had come to the party.

“Wall Street may hate Washington but sources tell M.M. that last night’s $35,800 per-head event… was a boffo success packed with hedge fund and private equity types.”

Marc Lasry was there, as expected. So was Orin Kramer.

According to Dealbook, the menu included: “Maine lobster salad with roasted beets, duos of Black Angus beef, braised short ribs with young spinach, and roasted tenderloin with stuffed potato and hen of the woods.”

The meal was prepared by Daniel Boulud himself.

The dinner was part of Obama’s plan to win back the group of financiers that helped him cruise past McCain in 2008, many of whom were turned off by the President’s labeling of them as “fat cats” near the beginning of his term.

I love how everyone portrays this as the worst insult and most horrifying experience of these delicate lambs’ sheltered lives. The horror of being called a “fat cat!” (Thank goodness they have “roasted tenderloin with stuffed potato and hen of the woods” to ease their pain. Plus the billions, of course)

This part’s quite interesting, although I doubt it has any basis in reality. These “fat cats” will all cover their bases — as they always do. Politics is chump change for these people.

Obama is hoping to win over hedge fund titans who were previously bundlers for the Clintons, as well as a much more challenging task — winning Republicans. Though Democrats won’t be so easily wooed this time around, apparently…

“One Democratic financier invited to this month’s dinner… said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as “fat cats” would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195 a person,” the Times reported earlier this month. “The donor declined the invitation.”

That’s nice. But the optics are the least of it (although they really are terrible, especially on the heels of a week-end filled with pictures of Obama and Boehner kibbitzing on the golf course.) I wouldn’t mind fundraisers at Daniel if the policies that resulted weren’t the equivalent of “let them eat cake.” These fat cats can dine on all the Maine lobster salad they stuff in their greedy mouths if all they want is to rub shoulders with the president. Unfortunately, they expect something in return for their largesse and they have the access and influence to make it stick.

But hey, a billion dollars for a presidential campaign doesn’t grow on trees. It’s not like the rest of the country has any money to spare.

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Open Letter To Delta Airlines

By tristero

Dear Delta Airlines,

Fuck you. There are no circumstances under which I will fly Delta again.

Ever.

Love,

tristero

Rocky Mountain Koch High

by digby

Hey, it looks like the Koch brothers are having another fancy confab with all the usual suspects, this time in Vail Colorado.

If you live in the vicinity and feel like making your presence known, this site is putting together the details.

Last time they got the band together it was a little bit unpleasant for them:

Some of our readers might recall an event held this past January in Palm Springs, California that attracted considerable attention–Politico reported at the time:

In the past, the meetings have drawn an A-list of participants – politicians like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, leading free-market thinkers including American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks, talkers Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and even Supreme Court justices – to mingle with the wealthy donors who comprise the bulk of the invitees. The meetings adjourned after soliciting pledges of support from the donors – sometimes totaling as much as $50 million – to non-profit groups favored by the Kochs.

For the most part, the meetings, which are closed to the public and reporters, have attracted little attention outside conservative circles. But very different circumstances surround the Koch conference set to begin Saturday at an exclusive resort outside Palm Springs, Calif.

The Koch brothers – Charles and David – have come under intense scrutiny recently for their role in helping start and fund some of the deepest-pocketed groups involved in organizing the tea party movement such as Americans for Prosperity, and for steering cash towards efforts to target President Barack Obama, his healthcare overhaul, and congressional Democrats in the run-up to the 2010 election.

January’s conference blew up on its organizers, Charles and David Koch, after liberal activist groups in California and around the country got wind of it and organized protests–and unwanted exposure for the secretive Koch brothers.

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Regulating them out of existence

by digby

Kansas may be in the process of closing down the last three clinics that provide abortions in the state. And they’ve done it through cunning and devious means:

The new requirements require facilities to add extra bathrooms, drastically expand waiting and recovery areas, and even add larger janitor’s closets, as one clinic employee told me—changes that clinics will have a heck of a time pulling off by the deadline. Under the new rule, clinics must also aquire state certification to admit patients, a process that takes 90 to 120 days, the staffer explained. Which makes it impossible for clinics to comply. And clinics that don’t comply with the rules will face fines or possible closure.

The state’s latest approach—with its remodeling requirements and so forth—is often referred to as “Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.” TRAP laws are intended to make it difficult, if not impossible, for clinics to operate, and they have become increasingly common around the country.

I guess that’s one way to do it.

I’ve heard lots of people pooh-poohing this because as long as one state continues to offer a way for women to exercise their constitutional rights that should be fine. Iit’s more onerous, but not impossible, so therefore it’s not that big of a deal. Obviously, for adult women with money, it is less convenient. Others not so much. But I would guess that illegal providers will fill the gap for them and we have a lot of experience in the past with how well that goes.

But what to make of this new approach to outlawing a legal procedure? One cannot help but admire the sheer chutzpah of people who rail against the very concept of regulation using it for their own purposes this way. But then hypocrisys isn’t something they worry too much about is it.

This just makes me feel weary. This will probably continue until there are just a few states still have clinics and then they will be able to concentrate all their fire on them.

Meanwhile, they are moving on to the next phase already.

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Fields of dreams

by digby

You know what the problem with Latinos is? Laziness:

By law, each worker must earn minimum wage, or $7.25 an hour. But there’s an incentive system. Harvesters get a green ticket worth 50 cents every time they dump a bucket of cucumbers. If they collect more than 15 tickets an hour, they can beat minimum wage.The Latino workers moved furiously Thursday for the extra pay.Jose Ranye, 37, bragged he’s the best picker in Americus, the largest community near the farm. His whirling hands filled one bucket in 25 seconds. He said he dumped about 200 buckets of cucumbers before lunch, meaning he earned roughly $20 an hour. He expected to double his tickets before the end of the day.None of the probationers could keep pace. Pay records showed the best filled only 134 buckets a day, and some as little as 20. They lingered at the water cooler behind the truck, sat on overturned red buckets for smoke breaks and stopped working to take cell phone calls. They also griped that the Latinos received more tickets per bucket than they did, an accusation that appeared unfounded.Robert Dawson, 24, was on his fourth day of fieldwork. On probation for commercial burglary, he said the governor’s idea was a good one and long overdue. He said farmers were at least partially to blame if they’re experiencing a labor shortage because they hired illegal immigrants.”I feel like they should have gone and hired us first before they even hired them,” he said in the morning. “You pay us right and we’ll get out here and work. If you don’t want to pay us nothing and we’re out here in this hot heat, 100-and-some degree weather, it ain’t gonna last.”By the afternoon, Dawson had sweated through his shirts, and his steps had become labored. His arms and back were sore, but he continued to work after other probationers had quit or were sitting under the shade of the truck. In a quiet sign of mercy, a Latino supervisor helped Dawson fill his bucket and walked it to the truck.

This came about because of Georgia’s new anti-immigration law, which left the fields short of labor. They are trying to put probationers to work in the fields to take up the slack. Maybe chain gangs would work better — and cheaper!

When they say the words “back-breaking labor” this is what they’re talking about. It’s what feeds America. I suppose that Americans could become accustomed to doing this work, but they should, at least, have a little respect for those who are doing it already. Lazy, they ain’t.

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Paul Ryan’s the happiest boy in the whole USA

Why do I have the feeling we’re shortly going to see the emergence of the “Unemployment Queen”:

During a Senate hearing Wednesday, an independent consultant said 90% of the states use technology that is at least 20 years old to process jobless claims. One state, he said, relies on a system that was first created 42 years ago. U.S. wasting billions on jobless benefits.

Outside experts and state officials say the U.S. could save billions of dollars if more money were spent to upgrade the nation’s unemployment insurance system, which is jointly run by the states and federal government. In just the past two years alone, the government has handed out nearly $30 billion in jobless benefits to people who were not qualified to receive payments.

30 billion dollars worth of unemployment fraud in two years? Sure. That’s believable.

But I’d expect to see it coming soon to a campaign speech near you.

Sealing the Debt Deal

by digby