The Most Corrupt Members of Congress

"Trying to find the most corrupt member of Congress is like trying to find the wettest fish in the ocean."

— me

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has published a report on the 15 most corrupt members in Congress. Of those 15

• 12 are under investigation
• several are under pressure to resign
• at least one is an adulterer
• one is a tax evader

• Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
• Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL)
• Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
• Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA)
• Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
• Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
• Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
• Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
• Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)
• Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
• Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
• Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

Stephen Colbert Says About Ted Stevens What the Times, CNN and NPR Won't Dare Say

I have never heard NPR come to the defense of a liberal, much less a lefty, but they sure as hell sounded like they were in Ted Stevens's camp this past week as the former senator's conviction was overturned on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct.

There is little if any evidence in Stevens's record of support for the rights of the accused against prosecutors or even of upholding long-standing constitutional principles like habeus corpus. Yet here he is standing on his constitutional rights. It took Stephen Colbert to note this irony because the Times and NPR are to cowardly or too conservative to do so.

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The Bail In

Paul Krugman has a nice essay in today's (Monday, 9 February) New York Times. Roughly, his point is that Obama's campaign to cooperate, to compromise, or to capitulate, is making any stimulus package weaker.

It's a predictable strategy. While campaign, Obama had to please voters. President Obama has to please managers. Thus a 'stimulus' that is going to help the better off far more than the average. Tax incentives to buy houses that are still overvalued. Promises to place a "floor" beneath bad assets — in substance a promise of profit to investors, profit at Our — We the People's — expense.

It is predictable because key Dogmas of American Economy, articles of faith, remain unchallenged, unquestioned, even unremarked but for the likes of the late John Kenneth Galbraith and a handful of others.

That business, in this case the banking institutions of the United States, must remain in private hands goes unchallenged.

That the wealthy have a right to profit and indeed to ever increasing profit — a right guaranteed by We the People — goes unchallenged.

That We the People exist to Serve the Privileged goes unchallenged.

That We the People — We the Voters — serve those by law elected to serve us goes unchallenged.

That those in power, whether in the corporate boardroom or in the elected office, are naturally talented, naturally gifted, to carry out their roles goes unchallenged.

That they the privileged must, by virtue of their unique and natural talents, be better compensated than We the People, and indeed that they must be compensated even as we go poor, goes unchallenged.

Unchallenged are all the articles of faith which have lead us to the very point we find ourselved today.

Now We the People will pay for the Bail In — the direct, popular financial compensation of exactly those who created this mess. Water will be bailed into the sinking ship, courtesy of the dogma of tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts and no public ownership, no public control.

John Thain - MIT and Harvard Grad

Elite Lad Eases Marble Turd Into $35,000 Toilet Bowl

John Thain poses on the floor of America's World's Biggest Toilet Bowl.

Once again, one of the best and the brightest steps forward to remind us that you really have to go to one of the elite schools to prove just how dumb, corrupt, venal, criminal you are. Just how smart do you have to be to spend $35,000 on a toilet, $1.2 million on one office? You have to be Harvard smart. And that is mighty smart, by jimminy. It's George Bush smart, Antonin Scalia smart, Robert Rubin smart. Smart enough to blow trillions and trillions on nuthin' at all. (Trillions and trillions. They got Carl Sagan beat by a mile.) George W. Bush, John Thain, Antonin Scalia, Robert Rubin - Harvard, Yale men all - with a healthy representation of MIT, Chicago, Stanford, etc.

Which comes first? The sheer stupidity or the gross venality? Are these smart people who get too arrogant or fucking morons who have an easy road to privilege. I personally think that most people are fairly intelligent, given the opportunity. Sadly, most of the most never have a snowball's chance in hell. But a rich, white boy sidling his pimply ass into a seat at Harvard? Like, say, William Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts, onetime national contender. Got his political ass kicked and went on and upward to set up a money laundering operation at a diploma mill. Now that's the kind of stupid you really need a Harvard degree for. You need to go to a 'leadership institution' to manage that.

As for John Thain, MIT undergrad and HBS grad (Harvard Business School to those not privy to Cambridge-speak). Well, John Thain, super-genius, wiley bankster, favorite to take the reins at Shitigroup (umbrella logo conceived by elite designer Paula Scher) deemed it essential to blow $1.2 million on renovations to his office, including $35,000 on a toilet bowl.

And you thought it took the Pentagon to spend money like that.

But, hey, things are looking up. Obama's got Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Austan Goolsbee & Co. on the job.

Whoops.

And for those who may wonder . . .

Just what does a $35,000 toilet bowl look like? Well, my comrades, my droogs, I still looketh. The best so far? $2,300 for a Kohler contraption. I will update you inquirying types when I have Innnnformation.

As of 4:55pm Eastern Time, Sunday, 1 February, 2009, We Have Struck you-know-what:

Another Kennedy Bites the Dust

Caroline Kennedy bows out. We all knew it was probably some leetle beety skeleton biding its time in her closet. The New York Times is reporting she Geithnered.

My second guess was that, with her Uncle Ted in serious decline, that she was opting instead to take the Kennedy seat in the Senate. We are, after all, a whisker's width from instituting our version of the House of Lords -- inherited seats, family seats in government. Kennedy, Murkowski, Stevens, Boggs, Clinton, Bush, and on.

Here's an excerpt from the Times:

Problems involving taxes and a household employee surfaced during the vetting of Caroline Kennedy and derailed her candidacy for the Senate, a person close to Gov. David A. Paterson said on Thursday, in an account at odds with Ms. Kennedy’s own description of her reasons for withdrawing.

The account emerged 14 hours after Ms. Kennedy announced that she was taking her name out of contention for the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, and as Mr. Paterson, according to two well-placed Democrats told of his thinking, was leaning toward selecting Representative Kirsten E. Gillibrand, an upstate lawmaker in her second term in Congress. Mr. Paterson has scheduled a news conference at noon Friday in Albany to announce his choice.

Hard feelings toward Ms. Kennedy were clearly building among the governor’s staff on Thursday, after a dramatic evening in which she was reported to be dropping out, then wavering, then ultimately, shortly after midnight on Thursday, issuing a statement ending her candidacy.

The person close to the governor said Mr. Paterson “never had any intention of picking Kennedy” because he had come to consider her unready for the job. The person did not describe the exact nature or seriousness of the tax and household employee issues.

But other Democratic operatives and people who talked to the governor disputed that account, and said that he had all but decided to select Ms. Kennedy as senator, and that his staff was arranging a press conference for late this week.

Remember, Always Remember — The Core Principle of Capitalism Is: EVERYTHING MUST BE OWNED

Someday, perhaps not too far in the miserable future, our sorry civilization will return to owning people. For the time being, it is everything that is not a person.

The CHALLENGE, my little droogs:

NAME A THING ON THIS EARTH THAT
(1) IS NOT A PERSON AND THAT
(2) NOONE CLAIMS OWNERSHIP OVER.

The case that has me grinding my teeth. Nina Paley, distinctive, alternative, unusual animator has created out of sheer love and determination an animated film: Sita Sings the Blues. A couple of times over the past few years, I've seen little tiny portions of this — totally unlike any animation you've seen. And there is a lot of animation out there that is unlike any animation you've seen because it is done outside Pixar and Dreamworks and Hollywood by people who sweat blood for years in groups of one or two or three.

That's the great thing about animation like this — animation on the fringe, outside the mainstream: It is NOT A SLAVE to the Hollywood damned demand for photorealism. THE WHOLE POINT OF ANIMATION is that YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE YOU WANT. It's NOT limited by the constraints of the "real world" — whatever that is.

So, Nina Paley creates this great animation (and you don't have to like it, just chew on this). She animates to an audio track comprised of 80 YEAR OLD recordings. 80 YEARS. The actual recordings are now in the public domain (though Disney and others are trying to change this). BUT the scores are not. So the owners of the original music are hitting her up for tens of thousands of dollars for a project done with no intention of profit — a purely artistic endeavor (to the extent that any endeavor is "purely artistic" . . . who knows).

Needless to say, Paley does not have millions in studio backing. So the film — winning awards left and right — is stalled.

How many great artistic endeavors depended, were intimately tied to, past work. And how many can we just think of — great or otherwise — that depend on pre-existing and, potentially, "pre-owned" content? Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Laurie Anderson, Mozart, Shakespeare, The Rennaissance, Greek Revival. We stand on the shoulders of giants. It's the very essence of civilization. Later work proceeds from earlier, in an infinite variety or ways.

Maybe some boner-buster at Harvard will try to patent BLUE EYES, or HAVING SKIN, just as they patented the "Harvard nude mouse" (yes, it's for real).

Beethoven, in some of his work (like many many other composers) used existing, traditional music in the course of his composition. NOT ANY MORE.


ADDENDA

Herewith my comment on Paley's blog. I should be more angry or angry about other "more important" things, I guess. Well, never fear my droogs, I am.

This is _exactly_ the kind of problem that thousands of artists and legal scholars have been warning about. Two people who come to mind: Cory Doctorow, who wrote about this on boingboing, and some legal eagle at Berkeley or Stanford whose name I can’t remember. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also been good on this.

Unfortunately, since artists are “just” artists, the idiots and moneygrubbers in Congress won’t get their heads out of their asses for a case like this. BUT sooner or later, there will be a case where some great innovation is lost, some new medicine, some new scientific discovery (and I’m thinking of copyright issues broadly here) and people will die or something terrible will happen. Then finally, this shites will figure it out. Still . . . I wouldn’t count on it. These are the same kind of people who tried to patent “clicking a button”.

Fight the good fight, be angry, be mellow. Send it to China, India. Some place where the billionaire fucks don’t yet control everything down to how we sit on the can. And may those bastards some day meet me in a dark place.

Roland Burris — Egopuniac

Roland Burris, appointed by the slimy toad aka Rod Blagojevich when the Senate seat sale was busted, was forced to eat some humble pie today when he was turned away from the Senate. More than a little hypocritical of the other slimy shites who mark the enamel of that body, but let's face it: Just because Blagojevich was more brazen doesn't make him or his choice any more palatable.

Meanwhile, back at the fort, we have Burris himself. His tombstone — already bought and erected! — strongly suggests this guy needs some help. Seen it? It looks like a giant granite resume for the afterlife. This poor little prick. He's been trying so hard for so long, and he alway gets the blowoff.

Ultimately, he's just another one of us. Those of lives of quiet desperation. But, damn, a granite tombstone the size of a bus that lists, among other things, experience as an exchange student in the early 60s.

Big Investors Get a Dose of Their Own

Bloomberg reports that "The Securities and Exchange Commission hadn’t examined Madoff’s books since he registered the unit with the agency in September 2006."

Meanwhile, some of the investors who were dumb enough to trust the goose have been identified. (We must always remember the American dogma that wealth is a virtue and that the wealthy must be more intelligent; else, how would they get welt

• Director Steven Spielberg
  

• Publishing and real estate tycoon Mortimer Zuckerman
  

• New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon

• GMAC (GM financing arm) Chairman J. Ezra Merkin

• Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman

• French bank BNP Paribas

• Tokyo-based Nomura Holdings Inc.

• Spanish bank Santander, possibly $3 billion in losses
  

• Britain-based bank HSBC, possibly $1 billion in losses
  

• Zurich-based Neue Privat Bank

• Yeshiva University in New York was an investor
  

And hedge funds (which have historically taken only investments from the very rich):

• Fairfield Greenwich Group, possibly $7 billion in losses
  

• Tremont Capital Management of New York

• Maxam Capital Management LLC reports a loss of $280 million

• Sandra Manzke, Maxam's founder and chairman: "I'm wiped out."

Senator Charles Schumer was one of the larger Congressional beneficiaries of Madoff campaign contributions. So too was New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg.

Blagojevich — Business as Usual

All who pay any attention to the news have now heard about Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich's trolling for payment in return for appointing so-and-so to Barack Obama's now-vacant Senate seat.

Much shock expressed in Washington, the news media. Yadda yadda yadda.

Come on, let's not act so surprised. American politics is largely about how much a candidate or supporters are willing to pay for office. The only distinguishing feature is legality — and that's a pretty gray area.

On one side we have Ted Stevens, Tom Delay, Rod Blagojevich, William Jefferson, and on and on. The politicians who glaringly, stupidly, cravenly grub for money.

On the other side, we have cases like Michael Bloomberg, who spent almost $69 million of his own money to buy the 2001 New York mayoral election — $92.60 per vote. He is the respectable extreme. Respectable because this is the way "Washington," broadly taken, does business from day to day. Other "respectable" businessmen have taken the same approach — Ross Perot, Steve Forbes, Jon Corzine, Ronald Lauder. (Billionaires are willing to spend a lot to reassure themselves that someone likes them.)

Less extreme but no different in kind are Charles Rangel, with his special rent-stabilized million dollar apartment. New Yrok Governor Paterson is also a member of that club.

Whatever Obama's merits, whatever he has done or will do, he has unambiguously established one new standard — raise raise raise money and dismiss federal funding. Howevermuch Republicans may wave their hands over Obama's "broken promise" to take public funding, we can be sure that they respect his example. And by gum, they'll follow suit. And if they can't, because the people are sick and tired of right-wing idiocy, then Republicans will just turn to the tried and true oldies — PAC money, etc. The Democrats are little better.

The Economic Rapture: Chapter III — Give Citigroup Something For Nothing

This is the Economic Rapture. The faithful are being called up to economic Heaven. The rest of us poor saps will rot in everlasting damnation.

On Friday, November 21st, Citigroup stock closed at less than $4 per share.

Today, the US government announced that it would effectively guarantee Citigroup a per share price of about $10.

Wow! The government won't guarantee American workers a wage of $8 per hour. As of July 2009, if you have a job, you must be paid $7.25 per hour. If you work 40 hours per week, or 1080 hours per year, $7,830 per year.

But the government does not guarantee you a job! The government gives you a very modest amount for a limited time if and only if you qualify for unemployment. You may also qualify for food stamps and for housing. So the government may help you achieve mere survival if you qualify.

And for years now, the Official Dogma has been to tighten qualifications on the thesis that doing so — instituting a stick approach — will get people moving, will force us lazy-ass Americans to find work. (Never mind that they may just not be work.)

What is the qualification for a bloated financial institution getting federal assistance? Fucking up! The bigger Citigroup or Goldman Sachs or AIG fucked up, the more money the government gives them — exactly the opposite of the line they take with us.

What's the difference? Well, friends of feds run those institutions. Buddies who went to Harvard, Yale, Chicago. Friends from college, business school. Friends who were colleagues at Goldman or Citi.

This past weekend, guru Robert Rubin was busy meeting with federal officials. Current Citi head was meeting.

When was the last time any Bush figure — or for that matter, any Obama figure — met with a labor leader?

For months I have been saying that this is an economic downturn with an essential difference — the wealthiest Americans, the creditors, the Rentier class — is at risk. In past downturns, when regular folks — you and me — were at risk, who cared? "Let us eat cake."

But Bush and Paulson, or Obama and Geithner, can't let their peers suffer. And make no mistake, even if Obama came up from nothing, he ain't there any more. Stop kidding yourselves, folks. Check out who Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner hang out with. It ain't production line workers.

If the automanufactures get a bailout from Obama, will they be required to refrain from laying off workers? Will they be required to keep jobs in the US?

No requirement has yet been imposed on financial institutions to loan to regular debtors. The British did impose such a requirement, so it can be done. But not in the US.

This will come back to haunt them. Even if We the People don't wake up, as we did in the lead-up to the first round of bailouts (before the media and the elite closed ranks), we must be able to buy stuff.

Bush may have sounded like the craven idiot he is when, after 9/11, he urged us to go out and buy stuff. BUT all he was doing was saying what the Wall Street brigade was thinking. Now they are saying it more explicitly. That's the whole damn point of (supposedly) injecting 'liquidity' into the economy.

But if it doesn't work, and we lose our ability even to buy the food and water we need to live, somebody wiser than our leaders will step in. Watch for China, or some other Asian giant, to formulate its version of the Marshall Plan . . . for us. At the moment, we are still the world's leading buyers, consumers, wasters.

Of course, we needn't be. The US comprises less than 5% of the Earth's human population. Five percent can go by the board with the world's economy still doing quite well. After all, for decades here in the US, 3% or 4% unemployment has been called "full employment". (How's that for Newspeak?)

So if China, India, Korea and others can find other, more flexible recipients of aid, perhaps they'll give up on the US.

_______________
AN ASIDE

Monday, November 24, Citigroup saw its stock soar, increasing in value by almost 60%. How many of the insiders, do you suppose, took advantage of their advance knowledge? In the chaos of the Rapture, given the Bush hostility to regulation and oversight (as opposed to just plain spying on just plain folks), how much inspection will there be of trades by the Rubins or Geithners or Paulsons?

Bush Defends Capitalism

Based on our experience of Bush — the Iraq atrocity, the 2000 constitutional coup, the credit pyramid scheme — a W endorsement of Capitalism or the 'Free Market' should be more than sufficient to tell us that Capitalism is a con.

But this is also the United States of Perpetual Faith. So the very 'experts' who assured us that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq are still relied upon for 'analysis' of foreign policy. The very 'experts' who manufactured the Credit Pyramid Scheme (Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, Goldman Sachs, etc.) are now relied upon to solve the disaster of their own making.

So none see any contradiction in (1) proclaiming the glories of our 'Free Market' system, (2) demanding a broad public rescue of incompetent, corrupt billionaires, and (3) demanding that 'free trade' remain unrestricted.


The Great President, while admitting capitalism's lack of perfection, asserted that "by far the most efficient and just way of structuring an economy". Really? To ram down the throats of millions a bill for trillions so that an handful of billionaires can remain billionaires? Talk about taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Is there any precedent in human history for so great a theft from the common folk for the benefit of the elite?

And all under the pretense that the many can only be saved by first saving the few. The irony of this last point is that capitalism does indeed grant priority to the capitalists — the owners, the wealthy — precisely because those few control the business decision-making upon which the rest of us are dependent. But so corrupt is our system that this is true only in principle. We are now seeing the bailout diverted to mergers and acquisitions, bonuses, stockholder bribes. Unemployment skyrockets, wages drop, benefits vanish, retirement accounts evaporate, and to these common disasters the market responds with enthusiasm, as it has for years.

People are now optimistically awaiting an Obama administration that is turning to the same corrupt charlatans that Bush has turned to. The most marked difference to date being an Obama willingness to bail out automobile manufacturers. This on its face might seem like a more honest effort to help workers, but there is a test in this strategy. Will an Obama bailout of Ford, GM and Chrysler include any protections for workers. Or will we see the carmakers instantly take the opportunity to layoff exactly the people they claim to be defending with their calls for assistance?

Naomi Klein on Bush's Exit Crimes

Naomi Klein has an excellent essay on the Bush and Republicon campaign to loot the United States Treasury, rob from the American people, and in general rape and pillage this nation, something they've been doing anyway since at least the Reagan years.

Klein specifically addresses the theft of bailout funds, a multi-pronged Republicon strategy beginning with the absence of any real control over how recipients spend the funds on to gross overpayment by Paulson and on and on.

In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door. At a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, Republican Senator Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bailout.

When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.

The Bush gang prefers bureaucratic instruments: "distressed asset" auctions and the "equity purchase program." But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese--a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.

How else to make sense of the bizarre decisions that have governed the allocation of the bailout money? When the Bush administration announced it would be injecting $250 billion into America's banks in exchange for equity, the plan was widely referred to as "partial nationalization"--a radical measure required to get the banks lending again. In fact, there has been no nationalization, partial or otherwise. Taxpayers have gained no meaningful control, which is why the banks can spend their windfall as they wish (on bonuses, mergers, savings...) and the government is reduced to pleading that they use a portion of it for loans.

What, then, is the real purpose of the bailout? I fear it is something much more ambitious than a one-off gift to big business--that this bailout has been designed to keep pillaging the Treasury for years to come. Remember, the main concern among big market players, particularly banks, is not the lack of credit but their battered share prices. Investors have lost confidence in the banks' honesty, and with good reason. This is where Treasury's equity pays off big time.

By purchasing stakes in these institutions, Treasury is sending a signal to the market that they are a safe bet. Why safe? Because the government won't be able to afford to let them fail. If these companies get themselves into trouble, investors can assume that the government will keep finding more cash, since allowing them to go down would mean losing its initial equity investments (just look at AIG). That tethering of the public interest to private companies is the real purpose of the bailout plan: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is handing all the companies that are admitted to the program--a number potentially in the thousands--an implicit Treasury Department guarantee. To skittish investors looking for safe places to park their money, these equity deals will be even more comforting than a Triple-A rating from Moody's.

Insurance like that is priceless. But for the banks, the best part is that the government is paying them--in some cases billions of dollars--to accept its seal of approval. For taxpayers, on the other hand, this entire plan is extremely risky, and may well cost significantly more than Paulson's original idea of buying up $700 billion in toxic debts. Now taxpayers aren't just on the hook for the debts but, arguably, for the fate of every corporation that sells them equity.

Interestingly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both enjoyed this kind of unspoken guarantee. For decades the market understood that, since these private players were enmeshed with the government, Uncle Sam would always save the day. It was the worst of all worlds. Not only were profits privatized while risks were socialized but the implicit government backing created powerful incentives for reckless investments.

Now, with the new equity purchase program, Paulson has taken the discredited Fannie and Freddie model and applied it to a huge swath of the private banking industry. And once again, there is no reason to shy away from risky bets--especially since Treasury has not required the banks to give up high-risk financial instruments in exchange for taxpayer dollars.

To further boost confidence, the federal government has also unveiled unlimited public guarantees for many bank deposit accounts. Oh, and as if this wasn't enough, Treasury has been encouraging the banks to merge with one another, ensuring that the only institutions left standing will be "too big to fail." In three different ways, the market is being told loud and clear that Washington will not allow the country's financial institutions to bear the consequences of their behavior. This may well be Bush's most creative innovation: no-risk capitalism.

There is a glimmer of hope. In answer to Senator Corker's question, Treasury is indeed having trouble dispersing the bailout funds. It has requested about $350 billion of the $700 billion, but most of this hasn't yet made it out the door. Meanwhile, every day it becomes clearer that the bailout was sold on false pretenses. It was never about getting loans flowing. It was always about turning the state into a giant insurance agency for Wall Street--a safety net for the people who need it least, subsidized by the people who need it most.

This grotesque duplicity is an opportunity. Whoever wins the election on November 4 will have enormous moral authority. It can be used to call for a freeze on the dispersal of bailout funds--not after the inauguration, but right away. All deals should be renegotiated immediately, this time with the public getting the guarantees.

It is risky, of course, to interrupt the bailout. The market won't like it. Nothing could be riskier, however, than allowing the Bush gang their parting gift to big business--the gift that will keep on taking.

Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) Took Bribes?

Two Minneapolis-St. Paul reporters try to pin down one of the dumbest Senators ever to bear the title, Norm Coleman. Coleman is being challenged by comedian Al Franken this year. (What continually astonishes me is the number of Americans who assume that our politicians must be reasonably intelligent merely because they hold seats in the Senate or House or Oval Office.)

The Bailout, Day 27

Let's review some landmarks of the bailout to date:

• Paulson is knowingly cheating taxpayers by overpaying major recipients of aid by as much as 100%, particularly when compared to the deal Warren Buffett struck with Goldman Sachs. (Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers Union | William Greider, The Nation, Oct. 29)

• Most money will go, not to ease credit availability for businesses and consumers, but to shore up bank stashes of cash. (Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group, Bloomberg, Oct. 28 | Bloomberg, Oct. 23)

• A large portion of the money will go to big bank buyouts of smaller institutions (Schwarzman, Blackstone Group)

• Banks that least need the cash will get the most. (Bloomberg, Oct. 29)

• Money will also go to ensure bonuses for executives responsible for the financial disaster. (Bloomberg, Oct. 30 | New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• AIG, beneficiary of a separate bailout scheme, is "rapidly running through $123 billion in emergency lending" (New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• Unlike the British, the Treasury has placed few restrictions on how its (meaning our) bailout funds are spent (or not spent).

• Insurers and car makers are seeking funds to bailout their operations. (Bloomberg, Oct. 27 | The Economist, Oct. 2 and Oct. 16)
  

• A record $200 billion deficit in U.S. pensions has developed during the current stock turmoil. (Bloomberg, Oct. 29)

• States are seeking federal funds to rescue them amidst massive budget shortfalls. (New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• Crisis in credit card debt looms for consumers. (New York Times, Oct. 28)

• Consumer demand is taking a nosedive. (The Economist, Oct. 23)

• American Express has announced that 7,000 jobs will be cut. (Bloomberg, Oct. 30) Job cuts so far this year exceed 500,000.
  

$150,000 For Palin's Clothes in Three Months

The "real American" is now a clothes horse for a wardrobe costing THREE TIMES what the average American makes in one year. And the Republicons spent this in three months.

Undermining the Cult of Authority

As Star Trek got right years ago, the United States is a primitive, authority-driven society. So, too, its marginally more civilized clones to its east.

Authority, of course, is more accurately termed "received authority". Thus, quite a few people correctly predicted the current financial absurdity, just as many predicted the disasters of the Iraq war. We might suppose they would now (even if not then) be recognized as authories. But they aren't. They remain largely ignored because they did not and do not enjoy the ear of The Idiots In Power, the Power Elite.

In the case of Wall Street, the naysayers of two or five years ago were typically liberal or progressive, did not have the Official Degree, especially a Harvard or Chicago or Wharton MBA. (Some like Elizabeth Warren, of Harvard Law School, did have the Harvard association, but not the relevant one. A Harvard or Yale law association becomes relevant, audible, and thus Authoritative, when justifying torture or mass killing of civilians. Consider Gonzales, Yoo, and company — the architects of the Iraq/Afghanistan war crimes.)

The point is that to undermine such a structure, it helps to be in a position that commands respect or a hearing. In the 1960s, Kim Philby and other Britons spying for the Soviets were allowed great and prolonged access to secrets because "No Oxford man" would do such a thing — "We were at school together!"

In the US, universities can bring such kneejerk acceptance. The war criminal Caspar Weinberger was known to be particularly keen on fellow Harvard lackwits. But in the US it is money that really talks. So the following Financial Times story (quoted in its entirety) is particular yummy. The Harvard MBAs get their noses rubbed in it by one who outdid them at the one thing they really value — amassing wealth.

Comical, or in this case, rich:

Hedge fund manager slams ‘idiot’ bankers
By James Mackintosh in London
Published: October 17 2008 21:13 | Last updated: October 17 2008 21:13

A hedge fund manager who made what is thought to be one of the biggest percentage profits of all time bowed out of the business on Friday with a fierce attack on the “idiots” running big banks who were willing to take the other side of his bets.

Andrew Lahde, founder of California’s Lahde Capital, used his farewell letter to investors to round on the US “aristocracy” able to pay for their children to gain a top-class education.

Mr Lahde, who has made tens of millions of dollars from his highly successful bets against the financial and property sectors during the past two years, also called for the legalisation of cannabis and said he was now dropping out to spend time with his money.

Saying he was “in this game for the money”, Mr Lahde went on to mock those who traded with him.

“The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking.

“These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government.

“All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.”

Mr Lahde is one of the few hedge fund managers to have correctly predicted the subprime crisis. One of his funds made a return of 870 per cent last year. Money is now being returned to investors as the remaining business is shut down.

On Friday, Mr Lahde said he would no longer run other people’s money, preferring to concentrate on managing his own, and urged wealthy hedge fund managers and corporate chieftains to “throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life”.

“I will let others try to amass nine, 10 or 11 figure net worths,” he said.

“Meanwhile, their lives suck . . . What is the point? They will all be forgotten in 50 years anyway. Steve Ballmer [Microsoft chief executive], Steven Cohen [founder of hedge fund SAC Capital] and Larry Ellison [chief executive of Oracle] will all be forgotten.”

See also the full letter of Andrew Lahde.

Wall Street Takes Its Cut

The Guardian reports that

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40.4bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup will pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted widespread criticism. The government cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay will be curbed.

Pay plans for bankers have been disclosed in recent corporate statements. Pressure on the US firms to review preparations for annual bonuses increased today when Germany's Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join chief executive Josef Ackermann in waiving millions of euro in annual payouts.

The sums that continue to be spent by Wall Street firms on payroll, payoffs and - most controversially - bonuses appear to bear no relation to the heavy losses incurred by investors in the banks. Shares in Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have declined by more than 45% since the start of the year; Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have fallen by more than 60%. JP MorganChase fell 6.4% and Lehman Brothers has collapsed.

At one point last week Morgan Stanley's $10.7bn pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business. In effect, staff, on receiving their remuneration, could club together and buy the bank. MORE >>

SIMPLE SOLUTION: The Guillotine.

Actually, I stridently oppose capital punishment, but damn. . . . These guys need to see criminal prosecution.

Sarah Palin — Tinpot Petty Dictator

Late on a Friday, the news breaks that Sarah Palin did indeed abuse her power as Governor of Alaska. Late Friday so that the fewest possible people will actually get the news.

"Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report by a bipartisan panel that investigated the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain."

PDF of report

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