Days after directing Americans to report "fishy" speech opposing his controversial health care policies, President Obama plans to reverse a longtime federal policy banning the use of web technologies to track and compile personal information that can easily be utilized to invade privacy.
A 9-year-old policy forbids the U.S. government from implementing methods on federal internet sites that track an internet user’s every click, often identify the person and even build a database of each user’s viewing habits. This poses a serious threat to Americans’ personal information, according to the Obama cheerleading squad better known as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The notoriously liberal and world renowned civil rights organization has blasted its precious commander-in-chief for this “major shift in policy,” that was never the less covertly introduced in a vague, single-page announcement in the federal register. “This is a sea of change in government privacy policy
On Aug 8,2009, Sibel Edmonds gave a sworn deposition in which she testified to her knowledge of treasonous crimes and corruption involving current and former members of Congress and State and Defense Dept officials.
Obviously the old ones did not pay to play the chi town way!!
Chrysler's sudden firing of 789 dealerships was more than a strategy to cut the store roster. The company used bankruptcy to shed dealerships it considered underperforming.
So Chrysler has begun appointing new dealers in some of the 140 open locations left behind after bankruptcy. The new dealerships anger some rejected Chrysler dealers, who lost their stores just two months ago.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford justified his use of state
planes for personal trips in which he often brought along his wife and
four sons, saying his taxpayer-funded travel was no different than that
of his predecessors.
It pays to pay close attention to what the President says, it can mean money in your pocket. John Crudele explains:
President Obama tipped the world off to the Friday [jobs] number well ahead of time.
But the president appears to have helped people who weren't in that crowd break the laws against insider trading.
The White House and the Treasury Department get the jobs report one hour after the financial markets close on Thursday. But the rules are that these numbers are confidential, and they are supposed to stay secret for a reason.
Tremendously under-reported this weekend was the story of how some
members of Congress have been under investigation for getting
“sweetheart” VIP loans from Countrywide Financial — the home mortgage
company that led the pack of other financial institutions to the
housing bubble last year.
The network that gets credit for doing their job is CBS News, which
reported on Friday that the list of “influential” Democrats and
Republicans that received VIP loans from Countrywide continues to grow.
The latest congressman being investigated is Edolphus Towns, a democrat
from New York.
Let me start by saying I have no information that Goldman Sachs had anything whatsoever to do with the Chinese Drywall issues plaguing home owners, but I want to make a point, how ignoring signs, signals, warnings and Americans crying out for help . . . will turn into something that we cannot fix without a huge cost. In fact, with Goldman Sachs, it is more like Humpty Dumpty. We will NOT be able to fix the damage they have done and continue to do to our financial system and our futures. So here is something I posted this morning on my real estate blogs about Chinese Drywall . . . and how it reminds me of how we are letting Goldman Sachs get away with whatever they want, because just like the home builders had politicians and regulators in their pockets, Goldman Sachs owns Washington and just about every Governor in the United States.
Now we are talking about a bailout for the home buyers of these homes, which will indirectly bail out the home builders. Nonsense. Once again, we want
One-sentence reduction: We legalized accounting fraud and have and are sending the taxpayer the bill to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Gee, more truth-telling this morning!
In its latest assessment of the $700 billion financial system bailout, the Congressional Oversight Panel warns that banks still hold many risky loans of uncertain value. If unemployment rises sharply or the commercial real estate market collapses -- as many economists fear -- the banking system could again lose its footing, the panel says in a report to be released Tuesday.
"Uncertain value"?
Oh do come on.
Let's look at the actual information that the COP put out, minus the usual media spin job:
The Panel's report raises several questions about the program, including whether accounting rules that allow banks to carry assets at higher valuations will diminish their willingness to sell.
English: We still have banks that are engaged in what amounts to accounting fraud when looked
As you may have surmised I like The Market Ticker columns. I have posted many of them. I see Denningers work as speaking truth to power. There is one thing however he never seems to address as is the case in the above referenced article I just posted. I left a comment over at the ticker forum and hopefully he will address it. If not I think there is something being left out of this story and that is the LOOTING of Fannie/Freddie by the Left.
When you have time I suggest you read this it is a bit old but shows another part of the story.
HOW THE DEMOCRATS CREATED THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/09/how-the-democra.html
We have learned that Goldman has retained the exalted law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, to quash the Aleynikov subpoena request. The lead partner on submitted papers is Matthew Friedrich, former assistant attorney general at the DOJ and deputy chief of staff to fomer US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey.
It sure pays (with 46 $100MM+ trading days in a quarter) to be connected.
Matt's bio from Boies's web site.
A nasty statistic:
Banks make $38 billion a year from overdraft fees.
Now let's look at the internals on that statistic:
3/4 of all accounts have not had an overdraft in the last 12 months. This means that one quarter of all accounts are responsible for basically all of this.
Of the remaining quarter, half of those account for nearly all (90th percentile plus) of the overdrafts. This means that roughly 12.5% of consumers are bearing the entire brunt of these fees.
70% of the overdrafts happen at a POS terminal or ATM, not by writing a check.
The last statistic is the clear one: There is no reason whatsoever for anyone to take such a hit. The bank knows before they approve the transaction that the money isn't there in the account.
This is not the same thing as a check, which the bank has no way to warn you about before you write it, as there is no "connection" between your checkbook and their computer.
IF we had honest regulators it would be strictly unlawfu
Nearly four years after the police shootout that took the lives of
Ronald Madison and James Brissette on New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge, the
FBI raided the offices of the police investigators who had been looking
into the deadly incident.
Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets at a time
when lawmakers have criticized the use of corporate jets by companies
receiving taxpayer funds.
The Senate's deciding to clear Dodd comes just a couple of days after the SEC gave a sweet heart deal to Bank of America - which, according ot the SEC, had misled investors about a several-billion-dollar loss.
The Senate's decision comes just weeks after the Department of Justice took less than 48 hours to arrest and beging criminally proceedings a Goldman Sachs employee for theft of trade secrets.
Judges, are you paying attention? You are the only remaining protectors of individual rights. Congress and the Presidency has been purchsaed. Barack Obama accepted nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs. Larry Summers has accepted payments from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks.
The committee, however, did scold the senior lawmaker for not being more careful in his dealings.
Lawmakers have raised concerns about Dodd's participation in such a special program, in part, because he has a key role as chairman of the senate banking committee in overseeing regulations of mortgages, many of which were key contributors to the financial crisis. Dodd is also responsible for setting the Senate agenda for a major overhaul of bank regulation, a key component of which will be reform of the mortgage sector.
Countrywide ran an exclusive program for "Friends of Angelo," or F.O.A., named after the company's former chief executive, Angelo Mozilo, which provided "sweetheart" financial deals for special borrowers.
According to a letter to Dodd, the Connecticut senator told the ethics committee that he became aware that he had been placed in a V.I.P. pr
I just came across this Market Watch piece titled "AIG says it's paying $1.1 billion to retain key employees"
Beneath the headline...
Government-owned insurer estimates plan already has cost $824 million
Thats right taxpayers own the major pe
With the Feds printing money so the car dealers and manufacture can sell cars, we will not even get into how, if we are such an economic hole 200,000 people can buy new cars, or the fact that on any trade in, what you get is what the overcharge
The University of Illinois, which employs communist terrorist Bill Ayers as a professor, has been hit by an admissions scandal which has forced the resignation of the chairman of its board of trustees. An investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that more than 800 undergraduate applicants received special consideration from 2005 to 2009 because "they had powerful patrons, including elected officials, trustees and donors." It added that "Dozens more law and graduate school applicants also got preferential treatment."
But how did Bill Ayers get his job? All signs point to his rich father, Thomas Ayers, who was CEO of Commonwealth Edison and a major power player in the Chicago establishment.
The former mistress of John Edwards arrived at a federal courthouse in Raleigh where a grand jury was meeting Thursday -- an appearance that comes as federal investigators examine the two-time presidential candidate's finances.
Edwards has admitted to an affair with Hunter that he says ended in 2006. That year, Edwards' political action committee paid Hunter's video production firm $100,000 for work. Then the committee paid another $14,086 on April 1, 2007.
Edwards, a North Carolina senator from 1998 until his vice presidential bid in 2004, acknowledged in May that federal investigators are looking into how he used campaign funds.
The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), concerned about the exponential growth of hyper-frequency trading, announced on Tuesday, Aug. 4, that it was considering a ban on one form of this activity, known as flash trading. But it has said nothing about an even bigger element of high-frequency trading, known as co-location, even as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is building two new facilities to house such traders.
I highly recommend this article think Cap and Tax and the money the residents favorite banker JP Morgan and Government Sachs not to mention gore, pelosi stand to make off your misery of being forced to pay for this nonsense.
It was because in his bio is a stark reminder of what happens when we collectively ignore a major scandal and move on to the next bull market. Arnold, now managing partner of the $5 billion Centaurus Advisors hedge fund had worked for Enron Corp. back in the day.
The disastrous and ultimately useless Sarbanes-Oxley law on accounting disclosure was rushed through. A handful of CEOs were tossed in country club jails. And the usual bunk about greater corporate governance was debated at conferences.
Yet only seven years after Enron went down in a flaming pile of management hubris and false accounting -- taking corporate America's reputation with it -- small investors and savers found themselves again at the mercy of a Wall Street-induced scandal, this time one
Warren's statements both at the time and later one made clear that he had every expectation, and perhaps even inside information, that the government would not allow these firms to fail. That is, he didn't make a bet - he jumped in front of the taxpayer, a form of legal "front running", to garner a guaranteed profit.
Last month, Congressional appropriators ordered three $65 million corporate jets (at a total cost of nearly $200 million), just a year after calling out Detroit executives for taking their own planes to testify on the health of the auto industry.
But wait -- it gets better.
Former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson was convicted Wednesday for bribery schemes aimed at enriching him and his family.
Former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson and his wife, Andrea, leave federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Aug. 5.
A federal jury in Alexandria, Va., convicted him on 11 of 16 counts.
Prosecutors had said Mr. Jefferson was driven by greed, using his political post to carry out business deals that financially benefitted his family. The most notorious scheme involved $100,000 cash that they said Mr. Jefferson intended to deliver to the vice president of Nigeria to grease a telecom deal that would have been lucrative for him as well as family members. Most of that cash was found wrapped in foil and tucked inside veggie burger containers in his freezer after an FBI sting.
The richest man in the world doesn’t need $95 billion dollars.
But apparently, the companies he invests in did. According to a new report, companies in which Warren Buffett owns sizable minority stakes received a whopping $95 billion in Troubled Asset Relief funding, as Buffett was shilling for investments in common stocks.
To be fair, his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has received no government aid. In fact, Berkshire became a major lender in the wake of frozen US credit markets, injecting $5 billion into General Electric, Goldman Sachs and even motorcycle-maker Harley Davidson at hefty interest rates.
BUSTED!
General Electric Co. will pay a $50 million civil penalty to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission accusing the conglomerate of improper accounting in order to make its financial results appear more attractive to investors.
The SEC said Tuesday that GE violated U.S. securities laws four times between 2002 and 2003 when accounting for items like commercial paper funding and the sale of train locomotives and aircraft engine spare parts. The SEC said the changes helped GE maintain a string of earnings that beat Wall Street expectations each quarter from 1995 through 2004.
"GE bent the accounting rules beyond the breaking point," said Robert Khuzami, head of the SEC's enforcement division, in a statement.
“Two firms, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch suffered massive loses of more than $27 billion at each firm. Nevertheless, Citigroup paid out $5.33 billion, in bonuses, and Merrill paid $3.6 billion in bonuses. Together, they lost $54 billion, paid out nearly $9 billion in bonuses and then received TARP bailouts totaling $55 billion. For three other firms—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan Chase—2008 bonus payments were substantially greater than the banks’ net income.”
So let's see - progressivelly higher daily revenues on progressively lower "indicated" risk-taking. It is so painfully obvious that the traders at Goldman still have not figured out how to game the system.
Goldman reported their $100MM+ trading days. It is a stunner: Goldman made over $100 million on 46 out of the 65 total trading days in Q2, 70% of total. Goldman made over $50 million on 58 of the 65 total trading days in Q2, 89.2% of total.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. made more than $100 million in trading revenue on a record 46 separate days during the second quarter, or 71 percent of the time, breaking the previous high of 34 days in the prior three months.
Trading losses occurred on two days during the months of April, May and June, down from eight in the first quarter, the New York-based bank said today in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company made at least $50 million on 58 of the 65 trading days during the quarter, or 89 percent of the time.
Just two days of losses in the entire quarter?
There are a lot of very good traders in the world, but nobody has that sort of record on any sort of consistent basis unless they've managed to rig the game.
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