Quick! Somebody get Pat and Vanna on the phone, stat! The Obamaniacs desperately need to buy a clue!
Answer: Clueless in the White House.
Question: What is the constant state of the Obama administration, Alex?
Alex: You are correct. Pick again.
Though many of us have known all along that Barry and the Bus Drivers never had any idea what the hell they were doing, a quick perusal of the weekend news round-up proves that despite Obie’s delusion that he was actually, at least navigating his “historic” course to the Nobel Prize, if not driving his custom, tricked out, re-built, rented GM Fishbowl, and owed his current position to his own aptitude and the acumen of his pit crew, nothing could be further from the truth. No, a careful reading of the “tidbits” contained in David Plouffe!-There-He Goes!’s upcoming tell-nothing-cuz-he-don’t-know-shit “expose” of the behind the scenes machinations of the Axelrovians, Audacity To Win, proves that whoever is responsible for the front man status of the Spokesmodel-in-Chief, it ain’t none o’ these clowns.
According to CNN, reporting on excerpts of the book now running in Time Magazine, Obombo was seriously considering nominating Hillary Clinton as vice-president, unbeknownst to Double David, both of whom were absolutely horrified about the prospect, horrified, I tellya! and thus, majorly relieved when Obie came to the conclusion, all by his lonesome, mind you, that he was too shy about exposing his potentially shriveled-looking, at least one short huevos in a political threesome with Billary to ask his Dream Girl out. Read the rest of this entry »
For months now, (since at least September of last year) I’ve been making the case that if there’s indeed a mastermind behind a scheme to get Barack Obama into the Oval Office in order to advance a corporate, Wall Street-friendly agenda, it’s none of the usual suspects whose names are always thrown into the mix whenever these things are discussed, like Henry Paulson, but this guy, JP Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon. A profile of the bankster in today’s New York Times, while inaccurate on a few points, imo, does nothing to disabuse anyone of conviction resultant from such speculation. In fact, the piece, in detailing the New York Federal Reserve Board of Directors‘ member, who was selected along with Pepsico’s Indra Nooyi, another Obama campaign economic advisor, and his cozy relationship with the White House, especially with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, could be seen as express validation of such a claim.
Thanks primarily to Matt Taibbi and his recent Rolling Stone article about Goldman Sachs, The Great American Bubble Machine, especially in light of the company’s latest profit report, Hank Paulson’s name has been prominent in the news. Everybody from Paul Krugman to Seeking Alpha to Congress has weighed in on the meaning, effect, genesis and reality of said profits in light of their new status as a bank holding company, the company’s bailout, and their relationship of the architect of the TARP program that provided it, Paulson.
However, the fact that JP Morgan has also benefited every step of the bailout/extortion way is inescapable, while the reality of Jamie Dimon’s relationship with Obama usually flies under the radar. As does the fact that where Obama, Dimon and Paulson are concerned, all roads lead to Chicago.
We all know that Paulson is from Barrington, Illinois and served as Goldman’s Midwestern Investment Division chief in Chicago before becoming the company’s CEO. A Republican, who once served as an intern to Richard Nixon, Paulson has nonetheless been accused by fellow Chicagoan, Robert Novak and Nina Easton of being a Republican in Name Only (RINO) whose appointments were to serve as groundwork for his wife’s college friend, Hillary Clinton’s cabinet, despite the fact that Paulson’s political donations were primarily in support of his party. However, if Paulson was trying to pave the way for anybody, it was Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton. Read the rest of this entry »
News of the release of documents detailing the shenanigans of the particular parties involved in perpetrating the 700 billion dollar fraud bank bailout, or Troubled Asset Relief Program, came out last week and didn’t really get the attention it was due, what with the Pretendident-as-Solomon’s first “Split the Fetus” tour stop at Notre Dame, and his fingernail clinging, bus undercarriage-headed Speaker of the House, Nasty Pancake’s, more-serious-because-chicks-have-a higher-standard, CIA never lies, and all going on. The Freedom of Information documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that TARP, (or, as I’m sure it is known in certain circle jerks, the Rape of They, The Sheeple, those willing, clueless, hopium-addicted, changeling co-conspirators, who managed to both bend over and grab all of our collective ankles, while forcing everybody’s, theirs included, hands up in a “reach for the sky” surrender gesture at the same time, by electing the Chicago Robbin’ Hood whose vig to the Merry Band of Banksters who he fronted for was due) is the cross-party, cross-administration, shady scummy scam we’ve all known it to be all along. From Politico: Read the rest of this entry »
On May 5, the Obministration finally decided to make official what every Obot detesting realist has known since Barack Obama became a United States Senator: the”internetwork” and the so-called, “politician” are in love. This, though unspoken, has never been a secret. Who needs words when one has actions? MSNBC, whose journalistically-challenged on-air personalities pornographically ooze affection for their Golden Boy on a 24/7 basis, are shamelessly forthcoming about their tingly-leg motivated compulsion to see to it that the man whose relationship with their parent company’s CEO is only slightly less of a tangled web than the one between said parent company and its co-partner in the hybrid network’s joint venture, is perceived as spectacularly successful and beloved by all. After all, such public bended-knee fluffing and prostate stroking is part of their job description, even if not everybody got the memo on the same day.
And, with the kind of deliciously wicked, bitchy-type writing I love, Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times snarkily reported on the White House representative Kareem Dale’s confirmation, at 1:51 in the following You Tube clip, that the ooey-gooey love feeling is mutual: Read the rest of this entry »
It seems that every day that the Pretendident manages to successfully navigate through without sticking his foot in his mouth, or his finger in the eye of someone, or a group of someones, worthy of PUMA respect, the resultant paucity of headlines causes the diligent bloggers of the PUMAsphere to turn introspective and compulsively begin to contemplate the future and direction of our nascent movement via our navels. Thus, we begin to see a spate of “Where Do We Go From Here?” What Have We Accomplished So Far?” blog posts, chronicling our genesis and calling for “focus.”
Why?
Where do we go from here? For now, we go where Barack Obama leads us. Not like the Lapdogs of Cheetoville, or the Sheeple of Sleepy Hollow, or the lazy, compliant Mainstream Media Mafia, all of whom have proven far too susceptible to the mindfucking and astroturfing of his devious, duplicitous minions to be trusted; but, like bloodhounds, or, what we are, PUMAs, who have caught the scent of prey and refuse to be diverted from our mission.
Barack Obama did not win fairly by being a superior candidate, he won by manipulating the media’s message, using whatever means necessary. PUMA was born to counter that by those who not only saw through his PuppetMaster’s manipulation, but were fucking outraged by it. We were not all of a color, religion, gender, political party or single mind, and though most of us supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries, our rejection of her rival was only minimally influenced by her. We always rejected Obama because of Obama.
As I watch the ill-prepared Pretendident try to advance his fauxgressive, pseudo-centrist, Republican-lite brand of quasi-liberal mishmosh of an ill-conceived agenda further along on the nightmare road to his own personal Jonestown that he seems so hellbent on guiding us, I can’t help but be furious at the KoolAid addicted juveniles who gleefully and cluelessly helped whoever tapped the hologram of an illusion that masquerades as the reality that is supposed to be Obama, to be the president that finally drives the country into the ground.
What the hell were you thinking?
Did you really believe that a guy who can’t remember where he is, or how many states there are, or whether he’s a Muslim or not, much less his own 4 year old, twice-daily repeated stump speech without a TelePrompTer, could actually guide this country to peace and prosperity? A man barely in the Senate long enough to figure out where his office, let alone the bathroom was, is suddenly going to be able and savvy enough to, what, wave a magic wand, kiss the nation’s boo-boos and make them all better? Is that what you thought while you watched his “what she said,” “I agree with you, John,” debate performances? Really? No shit?
Reading an Associated Press article with the headline “Americans Say Too Early To Judge Obama Performance“ it is clear that the particular brand of Obandini Davids Axelrod and Plouffe have been using to fertilize their Astroturf is working spectacularly. The statements of people interviewed read as if Obamatrons were regurgitating pre-programmed responses implanted into their memory banks in anticipation of just such an occasion, the sort that PUMA bloggers and their readers encounter from paid Obots on a daily basis. As we all know, sympathy for him from even those who didn’t support him enough to vote for him, followed by familiar, yet personalized, variations on the talking point themes of the day, is standard Obot procedure: Read the rest of this entry »
On a day when Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary, Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG,tc) appear before Congress seeking unprecedented power to further lootmanipulate regulate the financial industry, including non-banking entities like AIG, the company whose bonuses they’ve been called on the carpet to address, perusal of the day’s news stories, blog posts, and opinion pieces reveals more questions than answers. Is this the bizarre Obministration Hokey Pokey Bamboozle One Step Forward, Two Steps Back Cha-Cha-Cha it appears to be, or are the Obanomic efforts of the government so far truly on behalf of the people?
Donna Brazile, who claims her life is going to crap since her “MamaFactor” was elected, nonetheless says when it comes to bashing the Baby Prez on Training Wheels, everybody should just shut the hell up and keep sucking. Okay, she didn’t say that; that’s the punchline to an awful joke, but I thought that, given what she did say, it was a pretty apt interpretation. The Object of Donna’s Desire has been having a pretty rough go of it, lately, and DB is just sick of it, sick I tellya, and hates all the haters hating.
Donna’s mama would be proud that her baby girl is so kind-hearted and forgiving, considering all that her KoolAid-fueled infatuation has cost her. But, Does Donna blame Oboyfriend? Did Juliet blame Romeo? Cleopatra blame Antony? The chick on Dancing With The Stars blame The Batchelor? Noooooo! Whatareyounuts?
Over the last two months, I have seen my hours cut back, a newspaper column canceled, clients unable to renew their contracts with my firm, and others needing to renegotiate my modest fees. Business is drying up, and despite all my frantic maneuvers to move my little retirement funds out of harm’s way, my 401(k) is disappearing faster than the snow from the recent storm. I don’t want to see this president fail, and I suggest that to do so is a partisan luxury none of us can afford.
When Baracus Ceaser Obamacus incessantly cried, “Change!” from the rooftops via TelePrompTer in stump speech after stump speech written by the Cardboard Titty Groper at the behest of the Astroturfing PuppetMaster acting on behalf of the banksters bankrolling the hopium-fueled ObamaLove Train steamrolling into the White House, who knew he really meant restructuring the global financial landscape, huh?
The inventors of the soon-to-be patented (I’m sure) ObaSpeak have mastered the art of diversion through obfuscation that lesser politicians and wordsmiths have been practicing inartfully for millennia. Thus, bailouts are not bailouts, and “nationalization” is not quite, exactly “nationalization,” per se.
I guess when you’re determined to “redistribute the wealth” on the downlow, you have to figure out a way to freak people out without freaking them totally out. And, if you can come up with a way to trick them into thinking it’s their idea, so much the better. That’s probably why the number of women in high places in the administration will always continue to be limited by design, we invented the “oh,honey, how clever,” ploy and can see right though it. That’s why when it comes to the current global financial system restructuring going on right under the world’s nose, I sweetly call “bullshit, dear.”
I’m no economist, but I know screwing when I see it, even when I don’t know the people, or can’t identify the species of the animals involved. And, oh, baby, oh, there’s some serious money screwing going on.
Before the banksters got together and financed the junior senator from Illinois’ meteoric rise to the top of the political trash heap, the world’s financial landscape looked very different. Yet, in just a couple short years, the financial structure as we’ve known it has “collapsed,” almost in a curious tandem reverse/parallel tango with the seemingly unqualified and inexperienced young political phenom’s ascent. Funny, that.
Now that there are no more large investment banks, as far as I know, news reports last year trumpeted the conversion to commercial banks of Goldman Sachs’ and JP Morgan Chase’s status as that of the last two, and the government has played favorites with which struggling banks and financial institutions to prop up, we now enter the “not really nationalizing, except we own ‘em” phase of the Bwah Ha Ha Plan.
How do we know that this is a Democratic UniParty plot, and not just a cleanup of the Bush administration mess? Why, Harry Reid told us. Not exactly in those words, per se; that’s not the way of ObamaCanCratSpeak. From Politico:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he supports efforts of the federal government to dramatically expand its stake in Citigroup, but wants people to back off from the dramatic rhetoric.
“It’s not nationalization, it’s protecting the taxpayers’ interests,” Reid (D-Nev.) told MSNBC’s Morning Joe program on Monday.
“In the bailout, the TARP, that we made sure the American taxpayer had a way of getting paid back for their investments,” Reid said. “That’s what this is all about and it’s the right way to go.”
In other, normal American words, “yeah, we already own a lot of Wall Street, but, you’re getting a cut, eventually, so ixnay on the ationalization-nay, will ya?” He forgot to mention that the 8 – 13 dollar cut you’re currently slated to get, just might be in Ameros in the near future. Dollars will very soon be worthless, anyway, so kwitcherbitchin’. Remember, TARP is bipartisan.
The Politico piece goes on to claim that Republicans are upset about, shhhh, nationalization, shhhh, but, didn’t that cross-party blog pioneer/ObaFluffer, Huff ‘n’ Puff, among every other news outlet on the planet, report last week that Lindsay Graham made the Sunday news show rounds planting the “we politicians can do it better” seeds in the Astroturf bs? And, isn’t he just the cutest little Barney Frank alter ego across the aisle, hmmmmm?
Now even the Soros backedCenter for American Politics‘ hatchet blog, Think Progress, is trumpeting the “if not nationalization, what?” drumbeat. Even Republicans are beginning to see the futility of resistance. That the growing chorus of cacophony is reaching eardrum-splitting noise levels is probably just the inevitable response to the legitimate crisis of confidence currently devaluing the global economy, right? I mean, we gotta do something, don’t we?
Sure.
So while the Spokesmodel-in-Chief dons his most comfortable Professor Man costume and publicly breaks up his lackeys into study groups, the better to memorize their approved talking points asssigned them by the Astroturfing, bankster-employed, stage manager/prducer who had them written and distributed, those who chose to remain clueless can take comfort in the fact that worldwide screwing of this magnetude has never before been attempted, so is likely not happening now. It’s okay. The thrill of telling you, “I toldja so,” will be just as sweet as it will be for other, less tinfoil- friendly PUMAs when the shit fully hits the fan and splatters us all.
As I watched last week’s PBS special about the financial crisis, “Inside the Meltdown,” one of the many things I was struck by was the lengths to which the producers went to establish the consensus of opinion regarding Wall Street’s inordinate sensitivity and susceptibility to rumor, gossip, and innuendo. That such a vast, powerful, integral industry run by people presumed to be America’s “best and brightest” could allow decisions affecting the rise and fall of entire global conglomerates comprising the world’s economic foundation to be based on nothing more than “he said, she said” tales told out of school, or worse, possibly deliberately planted, malicious seeds of doubt, seems hard to fathom. Yet, the possibility of such an eventuality was demonstrated in great detail in the documentary, and, with just a modicum of imagination, one might easily consider that a few well timed “revelations,” true or not, might well take down an entire financial empire, if not industry. A little research might lead one to believe that such a thing is not only possible, it just might have happened.
In March of 2008, at the time Bear Stearns tanked and was sold to JP Morgan Chase at 2 dollars a share, only to have the price bumped up to ten dollars a share after the government intervened, even that price was only considered to be approximately ten percent of its market value. According to many sources, such intervention was rather suspect, for a lot of reasons, especially considering that the firm was not insolvent, though nobody would loan them money because of rumors that they were. In other words, it was not a lack capital that undid the company, but a lack of confidence. Vanity Fair encapsulated the cause of Bear Stearns’ death this way in the opening paragraph of its August ‘08 “autopsy:”
On Monday, March 10, the rumor started: Bear Stearns was having liquidity problems. In fact, the maverick investment bank had around $18 billion in cash reserves. But soon the speculation created its own reality, and the race was on to keep Bear’s crisis from ravaging Wall Street. With the blow-by-blow from insiders, Bryan Burrough follows the players-Bear’s stunned executives, trigger-happy reporters at CNBC, a nervous Fed, a shadowy group of short-sellers-in what some believe was the greatest financial scandal in history.
So, why did the corporation’s protestations to the contrary fall on industry-wide deaf ears? The company hadexperienced difficulties the previous year with 2 of its subprime mortgage hedge funds, High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund, and High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund, and was facing lawsuits from Barclays and other angry investors, as a result. Additionally, two of its former managers, Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, were eventually arrested in June of ‘08 for taking their own money out of the funds while propping them up with corporate bailout money and lying to investors about it. But, that was after the company died and was consumed.
According to CNN Money, Fortune, CFO Sam Molinaro asserted that by February, ‘08, Stearns’ troubles were behind them:
Bear had survived one liquidity challenge, in the summer of 2007, when two of its hedge funds cratered after the subprime mortgage collapse. The firm had labored to repair its balance sheet and improve its financing. “Our capital position is strong,” said Bear’s CFO, Sam Molinaro, at an investors’ conference in February. “Balance-sheet liquidity has continued to improve throughout the course of the year. We spent an awful lot of time trying to reduce our higher-risk asset categories.”
So, could Bear Stearns have weathered the storm? Then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s old company didn’t think so. On March 11, an email sent by Goldman Sach’s derivatives group to its hedge fund clients, saying they would no longer back them on Bear Stearns deals, was the nail in the company’s coffin.
While I am not prepared to suggest that there was a direct “cause and effect” relative to the currently discussed events, I do think it’s helpful to bear in mind that the financial “crisis” evolved against the backdrop of the presidential campaign. Would Bear have “collapsed” had the results of Super Tuesday been different? Who knows? It is something to think about, though.
On March 28, the Chicago Tribune and Reuters, among others reported that rumors that the company was claiming were “totally unfounded,” were swirling about Lehman Brothers, too. By August 25, on the day the Democratic National convention started, The Deal.com was reporting that the rumors had become a full-fledged storm amid suggestions of a hostile takeover by Korea Development Bank and intra-company planned coup against CEO Richard Fuld.
On September 15, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy after the government, presumably weary of going to bat for “failing” Wall Street companies, like Bear, having bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the week before, refused to intervene this time. Interestingly, one of Lehman’s holdings, Neuberger Berman, headed by then President, George W. Bush’s second cousin, George Herbert Walker IV, was exempted from the bankruptcy filing:
Neuberger Berman LLC and Lehman Brothers Asset Management will continue to conduct business as usual and will not be subject to the bankruptcy case of the parent company, and its portfolio management, research and operating functions remain intact. In addition, fully paid securities of customers of Neuberger Berman are segregated from the assets of Lehman Brothers and aren’t subject to the claims of Lehman Brothers Holdings’ creditors, Lehman said.
According to Wikipedia, and corroborated here, on September 13, Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG, tc,) then President of the New York Federal Reserve, now Secretary of the Treasury, convened a meeting about Lehman’s future that Lehman wasn’t invited to, after Lehman suffered substantial losses starting September 9:
An official from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said participants include Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox. The New York Fed official asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the talks.
Participants in today’s discussions at the offices of the New York Fed also include executives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. Representatives for Lehman Brothers were not present during the discussions.
Lehman claimed to be in negotiations for sale with Barclays and Bank of America, both of whom backed out. Bank of America bought Merill Lynch on September 14, instead. Barclays bought Lehman’s North American investment-banking and trading divisions along with its New York headquarters building, the next day, after Lehman was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
After the fact, in October, former CEO Richard Fuld said in prepared testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, that rumor-mongering was a big part of the problem that brought Lehman down. However, Fuld’s first contention was that the Federal Reserve’s refusal to allow Lehman an exemption to become a bank holding company, or commercial bank, was a body blow to the company. On September 22, a week after Lehman filed bankruptcy, The Fed allowed Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, “the last two major investment banks” to switch. According to the New York Times, this was a major big deal. The Washington Post reported at the time that the Fed had approved the conversion with “unusual haste.”
On September 27, the New York Times* reported that one of the members at the meeting that decided Lehman’s fate was Lloyd C. Blankfeld of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson’s old firm. At that meeting, the state of A.I.G., Goldman Sach’s largest trading partner, was discussed. As we know now, the government bailed out A.I.G., yet let Lehman die. Naked Capitalism asserts that the Goldman Sachs/Paulson relationship might have been more than a factor. In October, Bloomberg claimed that Lehman’s collapse was the fault of JP Morgan Chase, purchasers of Bear Stearns.
It bears remembering that in the midst of this Lehman Brothers/A.I.G./Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac financial upheaval, Barack Obama and John McCain were involved in a pitched battle for the presidency. It is also worth noting that Obama was reported at the time to have been in daily contact with Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary and former head of Goldman Sachs, one of Obama’s largest campaign donors. FYI, Paulson was raised in Barrington, Illinois, outside of Chicago, was also head of Goldman’s Midwestern Division, headquartered there. Worthy of equal or better note, Obama’s campaign economic team included William Daley, Mayor Richard Daley’s brother, and Midwest Chairman of JP Morgan Chase, as well as its CEO and New York Fed Board of Directors member, Jamie Dimon, who parlayed his turnaround of Bank One, after being dumped by his mentor, Sandy Weill of Citigroup, into the JP Morgan gig. Oh, gosh, did I forget to mention Bank One is in Chicago? My bad. One other noteworthy Obama advisor at that time was Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG, tc). I have done a series of posts chronicling Jamie Dimon’s involvement in the Obamenon, I humbly advise readers to check them out, here, here, here, and here,to name just a few posts, not so much for my opinions, but for the links to information they provide.
By November, when Obama secured the presidency, Paulson’s TARP had distributed about half of the allotted funds to “troubled” banks, more than half of it to the country’s largest, including Goldman and JP Morgan. According to reports, most of which came to light after Obama was inaugurated, the banksters were forced to accept the funds the Treasury was giving away, whether they wanted to or not, yet were later called on the carpet to explain how they spent them. At the hearing in the House, they, like their counterparts in the beleaguered auto industry, were castigated for frivolous financial excess, even though, not all of them requested government funds. As president, Obama had by that point, already railed against the ” shameful” bankers, and issued a “salary cap,” generally considered to be window dressing, since it only applied to those financial institutions receiving future government assistance from the second half of TARP, not the ones funded in the first bailout. TTTG, tc was said to have prevailed against other Obama administration advisers, namely David Axelrod, in the president’s ultimate soft bailout stance.
The TARP program, or Paulson Plan, is not universally loved by bankers, some say it’s a sneaky attempt at nationalization, or in the words of Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, “subsidization.” The Brookings Institute called for more Congressional oversight in December, calling the plan “frayed” and “rushed into law.” At any rate, the relatively ineffective, previous admonition is now a moot point, having been trumped by the new, stricter “salary cap” guidelines supposedly snuck into the president’s “stimulus plan” by Chris Dodd when nobody was looking.
The new rules require all banks recieving government assistence to be subject to the new, stricter salary cap rules. That means, even banks forced into the bailout program are now under government supervision. And, though Obama has made, “the discussion’s not over” noises, as Politico pointed out, it’s not credible that the administration was blindsided:
The tougher rules that passed in Congress were no last-minute surprise. Dodd talked them up in a February 5 press release, and in another released on Thursday, just hours before the bill was filed. The rules were debated in the Senate.
Okay, I know this is a long post, and to be honest, I’ve only scratched the surface of the mountains of information and questions that arise from it, here. But, for a series of rumors to be the catalyst for events that end up in the “nationalization” and/or “subsidization” of the nation’s banks, at the expense of the global economy, is a mindboggling thing to consider, even if it’s ultimately untrue, or unprovable, if it is.
As I’ve said before, it’s reminiscent of a John Grisham novel, The Appeal, to be exact, so maybe my skepticism is born of an overactive imagination. But all things considered, the more pertinent question is, what if it’s not?
*The New York Times printed a correction clarifying the dates and participants of 2 separate meetings re: Lehman/A.I.G.:
Because of an editing error, an article on Sunday about the financial problems of American International Group referred incorrectly to the timing and participants at meetings at the New York Federal Reserve between Saturday, Sept. 13, and Monday, Sept. 15. Although there were indeed meetings that weekend, there was also a separate meeting on Monday to discuss financial aid for A.I.G. Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, was the only Wall Street chief executive who attended the Monday meeting, not the only chief executive who attended weekend meetings. Also, Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, did not lead or attend the Monday meeting. (Both Mr. Blankfein and Mr. Paulson did attend the weekend meetings.)
No wonder President Black Obama’s administration is in such a rush to establish an official office of We Suggest You Pray. Besides the Teflon TelePrompTer Reader’s ever-increasingly less pretty speeches, that’s all they got. While some may harbor concerns about that whole “separation of Church and State” thingy, I say, you might just want to hold off on passing judgment on that one. At some point in the very near future, we just might all welcome a National Soup Kitchen and government subsidized homeless shelters on Army bases. Because, the bankers will soon have all our money, and our president is in a George Bush-on-the-way-to-Iraq type hurry to give it to them.
Despite the fact that many of the poor people sleepwalking with the shade on the light (to paraphrase Steely Dan) by choice are dreaming happy thoughts and giving high-fives to His Awesomeness for his hand-on-hips, get tough, hand spank of those greedy Wall Street CEOs, none of the CEOs in question are losing any sleep at all. The Obamessiah has decreed from On High that absolutely, positively, no body, ya hear me? nobody, not one single, solitary, money-grubbing, nogoodnik of a scummy bank CEO on the friggin’ planet will, shall, or might get a penny, shekel, farthing or ducat over $500,000 per anum if they take the government’s “extraordinary assistance.” Got that? Good. And don’t you ever forget it, either. Yawn. From Bloomberg, the president:
“For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis is not only in bad taste, it’s a bad strategy, and I will not tolerate it as president,” Obama said yesterday.
Yet none of the new rules will apply to any firm until it negotiates an extraordinary deal with the federal government to remain solvent.
Uh, see, (ahem) the, uh, “bailout” money they already got? Yeah, well, here’s the thing, that’snotaffectedbythenewrules. Seems like all the banks and financial institutions that have already been “bailed out” are exempt from the new rules; unless and until one of them tries to get some more government money they don’t really need. And even then, there’s wiggle room aplenty on that salary cap thing, as any sports fan could have told you from the start. Now, I know I gave you two things to chew on in this paragraph, one, some banks didn’t really need the bailout money they took and two, wiggle room. Let’s start with the wiggle:
In addition, some executives may be compensated for the potential reduced salaries with restricted stock grants, which may result in huge paydays after the bank repays the government assistance with interest.
“They’re just allowing companies to defer compensation,” said Graef Crystal, a former compensation consultant and author of “The Crystal Report on Executive Compensation.”
The restrictions are “a joke,” he said, because “if the government is paid pack, you can be sure that the stock will have risen hugely.”
Now the sizzle, fuh shizzle. Since the new rules only apply to those banks that come back for more of the gazillions being allocated for them, firms like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan Chase should be among those most properly chastened by the Jr. President’s bitch slap, right? Ha. They didn’t need the money in the first place, and won’t be coming back. Let’s take them in order, according to Bloommie. First, Morgan Stanley:
For some firms, the rules are insignificant. Morgan Stanley is among companies that don’t expect the restrictions to affect their business because they foresee no need for additional government help.
“We have one of the highest Tier 1 capital ratios among financial services firms, so we do not anticipate the need for additional government capital,” said Mark Lake, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley in New York, when asked about the new restrictions.
Next, Goldman Sachs:
Goldman Sachs said yesterday it wants to repay $10 billion it got from Treasury under the TARP to signal the firm is healthy and to escape limitations that came with that infusion of money. “Our financial condition is sound and, subject to approval from regulators, we hope to repay TARP money as soon as practicable,” said Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for New York- based Goldman Sachs.
Lastly, JP Morgan:
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said Feb. 3 that the firm didn’t need capital and didn’t ask for TARP funding. The lender accepted the $25 billion it received from the first capital injection at the request of the government and to help stabilize the banking system, he said.
Get that? They didn’t need the money, the government made them take it! Ho, ho! You fools! And now, Iceberg Lettuce, President Pimp, is frantically waving his arms and shouting, “Hurry, hurry, the ship is sinking, get in!” And all his bitches in the media are working overtime to inform you of the truth while making it seem like a lie, much like a sneaky mom hides the kids’ peas under the mashed potatoes knowing that by the time the kid figures it out, he/she will have consumed a healthy enough amount. And, who knows, the kid might even like ‘em, right? On the other hand, they might hate them, and even if they don’t, they might feel so betrayed upon learning of their own mother’s subterfuge that they never eat peas or trust their mother, or any other woman, again. But, let’s not think about that right now! We’ve got to do what’s best for the kids! Right? Right? Right?!?!
Obama traces his own religious awakening to his days working as a community worker in Chicago and said that both secular and faith groups working to improve people’s lives were vital in the deep economic recession.
Sleep well, clueless ones; the screaming you hear in your heads is just an audio illusion. And, if you should awaken, try not to rock the boat; we’re taking on water at an amazing clip as it is. Just…pray. Or, lay back and think of England.
Ever have two distinct and separate ideas rolling around in your head suddenly come together with the force of an electron smashing an atom in a particle accelerator? Probably not; it was a stupid analogy. Bear with me, I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why a president with an almost filibuster-proof majority would be so determined to be perceived as “bipartisan” that he would make unnecessary concessions in his stimulus package to the detriment of his own party’s constituents and at the expense of his party’s principles. That’s about as dumb as giving your house to a homeless guy so poor people will like you. It really makes no sense in light of the fact that the president in question is not above engaging in the political equivalent of NFL end zone booty shaking victory dance taunting, “I won! You lose! Suck off, punktards!” Which brings me to the second part of my quandary. Why is the country broke in the first place? Are the two realities related?
In perusing one of my favorite PUMA sites, PUMA Pac, I came across a comment about the Federal Reserve Bank, which asserted that it was a private institution owned by powerful banking families, not the government. That seemed a bit far-fetched to me, so I did a little research. I Googled, “Who owns the Federal Reserve?” Turns out that the truth is pretty complicated. The Fed is not exactly federal or private, neither fish nor fowl, though a little bit of both. From the Federal Reserve Bank’s FAQ web page:
The Federal Reserve System is not “owned” by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.
As the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the U.S. Congress. It is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms. However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Also, the Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government. Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as “independent within the government.”
Huh? The president selects the deliberately designed to be non-partisan Board of Governors of the Fed, but has no authority over it. It is also not part of the Treasury, though it is supposed to work in tandem with it. From Investopedia:
The Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve work together in an effort to maintain a stable economy. The Federal Reserve serves as the government’s banker, processing transactions, such as accepting electronic payments for Social Security taxes, issuing payroll checks to government employees and clearing checks for tax payments and other government receivables.
The Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury also work together to borrow money when the government needs to raise cash. The Federal Reserve issues U.S. Treasury securities and conducts Treasury securities auctions, selling these securities on behalf of the Department of the Treasury. Examples of Treasury securities include:
The Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury are also linked in another way. The Federal Reserve is a nonprofit company. After their expenses are paid, any remaining profits are paid to the Department of the Treasury. The Department of the Treasury then uses that money to fund government spending. It’s a relationship that produces a considerable amount of money. The Federal Reserve System contributed in excess of $29 billion to the Treasury in 2006, according to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB). So, the Federal Reserve not only helps to make and implement policies, it also serves as the government’s bank and generates a portion of the revenue used to fund the country’s activities.
Now, what does all this have to do with Barack Obama? Well, we know he has appointed Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat, to the position of Secretary of the Treasury, ostensibly because he’s the only guy qualified to get us out of our current dire economic straits. We also know that Geithner comes to us directly from the New York Fed, one of 12 Federal banks which comprise the Fed. From Wikipedia:
There are 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks (not to be confused with the “member banks”) with 25 branches, which serve as the operating arms of the system. Each Federal Reserve Bank is subject to oversight by a Board of Governors.[42] Each Federal Reserve Bank has a board of directors, whose members work closely with their Reserve Bank president to provide grassroots economic information and input on management and monetary policy decisions. These boards are drawn from the general public and the banking community and oversee the activities of the organization. They also appoint the presidents of the Reserve Banks, subject to the approval of the Board of Governors. Reserve Bank boards consist of nine members: six serving as representatives of nonbanking enterprises and the public (nonbankers) and three as representatives of banking. Each Federal Reserve branch office has its own board of directors, composed of three to seven members, that provides vital information concerning the regional economy.
The current board of the New York Fed includes Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, Leo Bollinger, Columbia University, and Dennis Hughes, AFL-CIO. Dimon and Nooyi are advisers to President Barack Obama, and have been throughout his campaign. Pepsi has launched a “Refresh Everything” ad campaign tied into the new administration’s “hopey-changey” philosophy, and JP Morgan has benefited from the acquisition of Bear Stearns with assistance from the Fed.
I’m no economist by a long shot, and I admit I have no real idea what it all means when I read that the Fed and the Treasury have also “bailed out” AIG, or that the Treasury has taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But, when the president is hinting at big doings a-coming from Geithner in the near future, my ears perk up, all things considered:
“Soon my Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, will announce a new strategy for reviving our financial system that gets credit flowing to businesses and families,” Obama said. He didn’t provide specifics.
“We’ll help lower mortgage costs and extend loans to small businesses so they can create jobs,” Obama said. “We’ll ensure that CEOs are not draining funds that should be advancing our recovery.”
Now, a lot of info comes from suspect places, so I tried to find independent corroboration wherever possible. And, while there’s a lot to process that requires somebody with a lot more expertise than I possess to properly assess, when I look at all this stuff, something seems fishy. Like the fact that the New York Fed, which seems to be the lead bank of the 12, and according to Wikipedia implements policy decided in Washington, lists the “primary dealers” of the Federal Reserve as including some of Barack Obama’s largest donors. Wikipedia’s list of primary dealers includes Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS. Barack Obama’s biggest donors list, according to Open Secrets, includes Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS, the United States Government, and Columbia University.
Now, like I said, I don’t really know what all of this means, but maybe bipartisan participation leading to a sort of UniParty is just what the bankers ordered. Maybe that’s what the real “change” is all about. I suggest everybody look into the Federal Reserve question, I’d love to discuss this with anybody who’s interested. How all this works together to bring us to this point, with this president, deserves closer scrutiny, in my very humble opinion.
That’s my prediction; when all is said and done, the Obama administration will look like the VIP section of Comiskey Park . The selection of Rahm (Take Your Knitting And Shove It) Emanuel is the first step in that South Side headed direction. Other names to look for, in my opinion, will be Valerie Jarrett, William Daley, and Jamie Dimon, to name a few. AP reports Obama will be meeting with his finance committee Friday, Dimon and Daley, both of JP Morgan Chase, are on it, as well as Chicagoan Penny Pritzger.
Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden were to meet Friday with 17 members of their transition economic advisory board. Members include former presidential Cabinet officials and executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc., Google Inc. and the Hyatt hotel company. Investor Warren Buffett was participating by telephone.
In a July 28, CBS News article, Obama’s finance team was partially named thusly:
The list of attendees was long and impressive: Warren Buffett participated by phone; former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, former SEC Chairman under President Bush, William Donaldson; Chairman of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi; Former Treasury Secretary under Bush, Paul O’Neill; Former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich; Google CEO, Eric Schmidt; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, among others.
Dimon’s name has been floated as possible Secretary of Treasury, Google it, the stories are numerous. Jarrett has already been named to Obama’s transition team according to the Telegraph:
In one of his first appointments, Mr Obama named Valerie Jarrett – an African American businesswoman, senior advisor and close family friend – as one of the leaders of his White House transition team.
Transition team appointee John Podesta is also a Chicagoan, while Pete Rouse, the other team member named by the New York Times, is linked to Obama through Harvard Law. I expect that most of Obama’s administration will be made up of Harvard and Stanford alumni and/or Chicagoans. Pay no attention to the media insistence on Clinton links, they’re coincidental. Also look for the names David Axelrod, David Plouffe and Austan Goolsbee to be prominent in the coming days. One prominent Obama supporter with University of Chicago ties, Lawrence Lessig, just might not make the cut. It’s a very telling toss-up on that one. At any rate, the Hyde Park-ization of the Democratic party will soon be extensive and dramatic, unless I’m wrong. In that case, Obama’s cabinet will be entirely different. But I don’t think so. Like the move of DeaNC headquarters in June, “Washington to Chicago” is likely the “change” Obama has always been talking about.
Some say Barack Obama has a “socialist agenda.” I have no idea what that means, let alone if it’s true. In this video, he talks about the “redistribution of wealth.”
In this one, he talks about a “Civilian National Defense.” The longer video with the entire speech can be found here, for context, with the money quote coming about 16:42.
He also talks about AmeriCorp, damned near compulsory “volunteering,” putting old people to work, and making kids work off their college loans. And who can forget Michelle Obama’s words?
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual – uninvolved, uninformed.”
Yet, how do you then account for his financial backing from people like Penny Pritzker, JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and William Daley, both of whom are on his finance team and who I have written about here, here,here,and here, among others. Earl Ofari Hutchinson, in a piece for the Huffington Post, lambasted Obama and McCain equally for their part in the finacial crisis, given the amount of money both have recieved from prime players, though Obama has gotten far more, which can be validated here, here, here,and here.
When Obama talks about “spreading the wealth around” is he really talking about “redistributing the wealth” to the “middle class,” or is he talking about restructuring the financial industry to the benefit of the big money donors who bankroll him?
Even John Grisham would have a hard time selling the events of the 2008 Democratic election as a novel, but if anybody could, it would probably be him. Lord knows, he’d have a lot to work with. Think about it, a political thriller about an African American candidate coming up out of nowhere, with the mega-buck backing of unknown benefactors hidden by the illusion of unprecedented internet support, to secure the nomination even though he was resoundingly rejected by more than half of his party. Wow! Add the element of a shady Chicago cabal of disparate entities hellbent on remaking the American government and moving the seat of power from Washington D.C. to their home city, through the restructuring of the banking industry, bringing down the global economy in the process. Exploiting a rift in the party, a coup of sorts could be executed, resulting in the overthrow of the party’s ruling family with help from the candidate vanquished early in the last election. Throw in a little organized crime, a few ‘60’s radicals, some local machine politics and the greed and corruption of a major political party, and you’ve got a best-seller on your hands. Wrap the whole thing around a civil court case, and let Mr. Grisham loose. The fictional consequences would present no real-life repercussions and it would be a whole lot more entertaining than what we’re experiencing now.
Who might the cast of characters in this fictional drama be?
Barack Obama – Charismatic, up-and-coming, Harvard educated, junior senator from Illinois; this character would overwhelmingly appeal to the under-represented black community, who could then easily be manipulated into supporting “one of their own.” Hiding a radical socialist agenda under a glib persona, he would be slickly packaged and sold as a messianic redeemer of the underclasses. Coupled with the support of the far-left academic intellectual community, the appearance of a “base” could be built, allowing the candidate to be skillfully marketed, through the use of the internet. Preaching a “non-partisan” platform, unlimited corporate funding could then be funneled to the candidate’s campaign under the guise of massive small donor, across-the-board, grassroots support.
Michelle Obama – First Lady wannabe wife of the candidate, more radical than even her husband, this politically ambitious mother of two, often mistaken as the power-behind-the-throne, relishes the opportunity to further her extremist ideas that her husband’s candidacy presents, though less successful at masking them than he. Fashioning herself a modern-day Jacqueline Kennedy, she would become as well known for her more than occasional public lapses into radicalism as for her sense of style.
David Axelrod – Well-known political kingmaker, the reigning “king of Astroturfing” as he is known, this PR man extraordinaire would spectacularly succeed in his effort to “make a president” out of whole cloth. Known for shaping public opinion by creating the illusion of grassroot support (astroturfing) for his public- and private-sector clients through his two separate firms, Axelrod would plot the course of the candidate’s campaign, writing his TelePrompTer-read speeches, designing campaign strategy exploiting loopholes in existing party rules, and creating a Beatlemania-like atmosphere through the use of artfully stage-managed public appearances. Staying primarily in the background, Axelrod would only appear publicly to explain what Obama really meant (WORM) in order to extinguish one of numerous fires inevitably resulting from trying to pull off the daunting prospect of deluding the country and the world.
William Ayers – unrepentant ’60’s radical bomber turned respected university professor, the combination terrorist/academic/fat cat provides a bridge to the candidates multiple bases of support. Hiding his unreleased radicalism in plain sight, this son of privilege and original architect of the grand scheme to overthrow the government provides entree into the right circles for his hand-picked Manchurian candidate. He also ghost-writes the candidate’s bestselling first memoir which later serves as the basis for the candidate’s legitimacy.
Bernadine/Bernadette Dorhn – even more radical wife of subversive Ayers, this frustrated still mad bomber serves as marriage broker for the candidate by introducing him to her law firm protege before re-entering academia.
Jamie Dimon – CEO JP Morgan Chase, member of candidate’s finance committee, said to be on the short list for Treasury Secretary in candidate’s administration, Dimon turns public humiliation for being unceremoniously dumped by his mentor at Citigroup into a triumph of revenge by heading up Chicago’s BankOne through a merger with JPM after a sixteen month layoff to plot and sulk. The resulting pissing contest between the two firms leads to Dimon’s apparent victory in the market restructuring game.
This motley crew of characters, plotting to move the government’s base of operations to Chicago, could consolidate their political and financial power once Wall Street and the global market has been destroyed, and their candidate has been elected. Though I’m not at all knowledgeable about economics, maybe a Dow Jones/Chicago Mercantile Exchange power shift might be an interesting plot twist.
If that’s not bad enough, if elected, this “politician” would preside over a country undergoing a complete restructuring of it’s banking industry, a country that is about to bailout Wall Street with 700 billion dollars plus of taxpayer money. This comes after re-naming the “bailout” a “rescue” in an attempt to placate disgruntled voters who expressed their displeasure to lawmakers, only to seem to change their minds after the overloaded House website was shut down. Makes you wonder how Congress got the message.
Yet, nobody mentions the other bailouts, like the one in March for JP Morgan Chase, or the 630 billion the Fed pumped into the global financial market Sept. 29, or the other 630 billion dollar government spending bill, including 25 billion bucks for automakers, that Bush signed Tuesday. And, heaven forbid anyone from talking about monies paid to Congress by companies involved in the big bailout, or question donations to the “politician” benefiting most with voters from the country’s economic troubles, even when those donations come from the same banking industry whose executives advise him, like Jamie Dimon and William Daley (Chicago mayor, Richard’s brother) of JP Morgan Chase. If you’re not going to ask about those guys, you certainly won’t pay attention to donors to the “politician” like Mr. Good Will or Mr. Doodad Pro. Naaah, everything’s fine.
So, while I may seem to be a tad irrational in my daily ranting about this “politician,” I assure you, I am not. In a society gone mad, when the deck seems stacked against you, and the other side is just as bad, insanity is relative, anyway.
There are some strange relationships involved in the Obama bailout resolution, you know, the tentative one he said he deserved all the credit for? Well, I’m no economist, so I don’t know what it all means, but some things just don’t feel right, you know? Obama said that he’s been on the phone 24/7 with Henry Paulson, you know, the guy from Goldman Sachs, the one who headed up the midwestern division out of Chicago? Anyway, he and Obama have been jawing pretty regularly, according to Obama, who says he just wants to protect the little guy in all this. Oh, really? How much of the 700 billion do we get?
American Spectator blog via Chicagoans Against Obama alleges that the cozy relationship between Obama and Goldman Sachs has been recently beneficial regarding bailout negotiations:
When Sen. Barack Obama was given the floor to speak during White House negotiations, according to White House aides, he did so raising concerns about a House Republican alternative to the Paulson/Bernanke $700 billion bailout. But those concerns weren’t necessarily his, as he was not aware of the GOP plan before reviewing notes provided him by Paulson loyalists in Treasury prior to entering the meeting.
According to an Obama campaign source, the notes were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him, who had been emailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. “It was made clear that the memo was from ‘friends’ and was reliable,” says the campaign source.
On Friday, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley changed status from investment banks to bank holding companies. From Time:
The Federal Reserve said Sunday it had granted a request by the country’s last two major investment banks — Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — to change their status to bank holding companies.
The Fed announced that it had approved the request of the two investment banks. The change in status will allow them to create commercial banks that will be able to take deposits, bolstering the resources of both institutions.
The change continued the biggest restructuring on Wall Street since the Great Depression.
According to CNN Money/Fortune, Obama has a pretty stellar economic team, including Jason Furman, his economic policy advisor:
That bench also includes poverty expert Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute; Austan Goolsbee, the University of Chicago economist who has been at Obama’s side since the start of the race; and Georgetown University law professor Daniel Tarullo. Investor Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker top off the list of regular advisers. A larger circle also includes CEOs Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo (PEP, Fortune 500), and Eric Schmidt of Google (GOOG, Fortune 500).
The Telegraph UK lists a few other Obama money folks:
Obama’s main public support comes from Penny Pritzker, whose Chicago-based clan is one of the wealthiest in America, and JP Morgan Chase’s head of corporate responsibility William Daley, whose brother, Richard, just happens to be Chicago’s mayor.
In July, Obama rallied the guys ’round the table for the bi-partisan “group I will be convening periodically over the next few months,” CBS News reported:
The list of attendees was long and impressive: Warren Buffett participated by phone; former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, former SEC Chairman under President Bush, William Donaldson; Chairman of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi; Former Treasury Secretary under Bush, Paul O’Neill; Former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich; Google CEO, Eric Schmidt; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, among others.
The JP Morgan Chase/Obama relationship is interesting because of recent moves the company has made. Said to be largely unaffected by the subprime mortgage mess, JPM has been involved in the Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual deals/rescues. CNN says of the second acquisition of the year by company CEO Jamie Dimon:
The acquisition is JPMorgan Chase’s second major purchase this year following the mid-March acquisition of investment bank Bear Stearns, a deal that was also engineered by the government.
Bear Stearns, one of the nation’s biggest and most prominent investment banks, stunned Wall Street Friday by announcing it had turned to rival JP Morgan Chase and the federal government for an emergency bailout.
The surprise, last-ditch rescue effort, announced just before the stock market opened, was the latest troubling sign of how a cascading credit crisis is threatening the liquidity of even Wall Street’s most established firms.
Though it’s hard to see how Obama might have directly influenced anything so far, there’s no doubt he and JPM CEO Jamie Dimon have a relationship. In July, he told CNN/Fortune:
I got to know Jamie Dimon quite well when he was in Chicago. I think he’s a very smart person, and I think he’s doing his best to manage his bank under difficult circumstances.
The Wall Street Journal claims Dimon is on the short-list for Secretary of the Treasury in an Obama administration, though Timothy Geithner is said to be the front-runner:
Geithner is a solid choice in many ways: he has plenty of Treasury experience and he played a leading role in this year’s Bear Stearns drama that was a critical point in the credit crunch. Should he win the post, it would be at the expense of several prominent current and former Wall Street bankers–including prominent Democratic contributors–who names have been floated as candidates for the job.
Two others mentioned in that Real Time Economics post are J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.
I guess it’s good to know that while Senator Obama is diligently looking out for the little guy, he has so many big guys on his side. I mean, the guy involved with some of the more interesting aspects of the country’s corporate restructuring is flying under the radar as one of Obama’s most trusted advisers. You’d have to be, to be on the short-list for Treasury Secretary, right? If this was a Grisham novel, I’d say this would be the guy to watch. And we’ve barely even mentioned Penny Pritzker. We’ll save that and some of the other Obama financial team intricacies for later, shall we?
*UPDATE: From AP-Yahoo News, re: the tentative bailout agreement:
While the plan broadly aims to prevent banks from profiting on the sale of troubled assets to the government, there is an exception made for assets acquired in a merger or buyout, or from companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
This detail could allow JPMorgan Chase & Co. to sell toxic mortgages and other assets it gained control of last week when it purchased Washington Mutual Inc. for a higher price than the failed thrift paid for them.
Coffee or tea? Black or with cream? Sweet or dry? On the rocks or neat? Gay or straight? At the end of the day, whether you take the Republican or Democratic side of the questions surrounding the bailout comes down to, “how do you like it?” Because, either way, you’re getting screwed.
There are no clean hands regarding the economic meltdown we face. While there are certainly fingers to be pointed at the people who put the loopholes in the system, the fact is, both sides have inserted themselves in those loopholes and moved in and out of them until they reached satisfaction, if you get my drift. It all boils down to how you prefer to be financially raped, with flowers, candy and GHB, (Democrats) or taken by brute force (Republicans).
Quick! Somebody get Pat and Vanna on the phone, stat! The Obamaniacs desperately need to buy a clue!
For months now, (since at least 
News
On May 5, the Obministration finally decided to make official what every Obot detesting realist has known since Barack Obama became a United States Senator: the”internetwork” and the so-called, “politician” are in love. This, though unspoken, has never been a secret. Who needs words when one has actions? MSNBC, whose journalistically-challenged on-air personalities pornographically ooze affection for their Golden Boy on a 24/7 basis, are shamelessly forthcoming about their 
This is a rant.
As I watch the ill-prepared Pretendident try to advance his fauxgressive, pseudo-centrist, Republican-lite brand of quasi-liberal 
Reading an Associated Press article with the headline “
On a day when Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 
Donna Brazile
When Baracus Ceaser Obamacus incessantly cried, “Change!” from the rooftops via TelePrompTer in stump speech after stump speech written by the Cardboard Titty Groper at the behest of the Astroturfing PuppetMaster acting on behalf of the banksters bankrolling the hopium-fueled ObamaLove Train steamrolling into the White House, who knew he really meant restructuring the global financial landscape, huh?
As I watched last week’s PBS special about the financial crisis, “
No wonder President Black Obama’s administration is in such a rush to establish an official office of 
Ever have two distinct and separate ideas rolling around in your head suddenly come together with the force of an electron smashing an atom in a particle accelerator? Probably not; it was a stupid analogy. Bear with me, I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from.
