Slashdot Mirror

Could I suggest a RICO against the Federal Reserve?

Bloomberg tried suing the FED under the FOIA to disclose who it gave $2 trillion to. They claim they don't have to disclose under the FOIA because they technically aren't part of the government.

words evolve in meaning and use, and you need to get used to it

So just to make things clear, I think we need a new name for these guys I wouldn't want to soil their reputation by continuing to call them pirates.

The repercussions of the Bush admin will last for years, if not decades. There's plenty of fodder to pick on for a long time! Obama will inherit big bailouts, the FED giving out trillions in loans secretly, warrant less wiretaps (Obama did vote for that one), two wars, and whole lot more.

Sorry to burst your bubble,but that 700 billion was just so much smoke blown up our collective rears. The real number so far is $2 trillion and so far they refuse to even tell us where the money went. Don't you just love the brilliant plan of putting Wall Street insiders in charge of bailing out their buds? What could possibly go wrong?

I agree. They just scraped an old WPA bridge near my home,not because it was unsafe,but because it was built in the time of single lane back roads and with all the trucks they needed a two lane bridge. That thing was built like a tank and had needed almost no maintenance in the nearly 80 years it stood. Most of the bridges here in AR,along with a lot of the electric and water lines were originally WPA,and really changed folks lives for the better in these rural states.

So why not a WPA now to not only fix the crumbling roads,but to build us a new national broadband infrastructure for future generations? We could cut the ranks of the unemployed and lay fiber throughout the country,from the most urban to the most rural. And since it would be owned by We,The People we could lease it out to the telecos and have us some actual free market competition for a change. Wouldn't that be nice? Oh,BTW,it isn't 700 billion,that was just smoke up your butt. The actual number so far is 2 trillion! and they refuse to even tell us where the money went. You know,OUR money,that our great great grandkids will be paying for? You just have to love the brilliance of putting Wall Street insiders in charge of bailing out Wall Street.

I live in the US, so I think you are referring to a whole different country. I won't even attempt to describe what I see/hear every day to which you seem oblivious, maybe I will just post a link to yesterday's news

their brand new airplanes that can fire a laser at a top secret satellite to have it bounce back and kill a target half way around the world.

Not only you don't have a clue at what is going on with the US government, you also watch too much (bad) sci-fi.

Oh you want to add some insult to the injury? How about how they just boosted AIG to $150 billion and that $700 billion? They have actually spent $2 trillion and are refusing to say where the money actually went. You just got to love putting Wall Street insiders in charge of a Wall Street bailout.

Trust me. You wouldn't be terribly comfortable if AIG imploded. No one would be.

And that is the essence of the problem, is it not? How can a a political establishment so obsessed with "national security" let a market of an estimated $60 trillion dollars (almost 5 times our national GDP) go completely unregulated? It's absurd...

No terrorist in Guantanamo (or Afghanistan, for that matter) could ever do this much damage to the country, and yet none of those responsible will ever be executed, waterboarded, or undergo "extraordinary rendition." Funny how that works, huh? While we were all arguing over Dick Cheney's ticking time bomb hypothetical scenarios, the nation's economy was being set up for the largest act of sabotage and fraud in human history, and not a single person has yet to be arrested for it.

I'd be surprised if even a single CEO or government official ever gets convicted over this. And even if they do, we won't see a cent of their ill-gotten gains. Take a look at Kenneth Lay, mastermind of the Enron fraud. The man just so happened to conveniently die after his conviction but before his sentencing. The result? His conviction was wiped from the records and none of his or his wife's assets were seized.

Justice. Does the word even have a place in our society any more?

-Grym

Main How To Ruin A Retail Company

A prime case study on how to ruin a retail company:

• Profits from sales were down a bit, because some retail sales changed to the Internets.
• Management switched salespersons from commission based pay to meager hourly wages.
• Sales droped further.
• Management fired long-term, experienced and expensive salespersons and hires unqualified but cheaper people instead.
• Sales drop further.
• Overpaid management gets fired.
• New management finds the company is bankrupt.

Circuit City Fires 2,000 Workers to Cut Costs, Feb. 6, 2003
Circuit City Stores Inc. has fired 2,000 people, including salespeople at its outlet near Gateway Mall in Springfield, in a move to cut costs.

The electronics retailer announced it is firing 5 percent of its work force and also converting commissioned sales people to hourly pay.

Circuit City to Fire 3,400, Hire Less Costly Workers, March 28, 2007
Circuit City Stores Inc., the second-largest U.S. electronics retailer after Best Buy Co., fired 3,400 of its highest-paid hourly workers and will hire replacements willing to work for less.
...
"Firing 3,400 of arguably the most successful sales people in the company could prove terrible for morale," Colin McGranahan, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein & Co., wrote in a note today. "The question remains as to whether Circuit City can rebuild in time for the all-important holiday season."
...
Circuit City shares rose 35 cents to $19.23 at 4:18 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
...
In 2003, Circuit City switched employees from commission- based pay to hourly pay, matching an earlier move by Best Buy. That switch had a "dramatically negative impact on sales," McGranahan said today.

Circuit City, Electronics Retailer, Seeks Bankruptcy , Nov. 10, 2008
The petition for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia, listed $3.4 billion in assets and $2.32 billion in liabilities, driving the shares down 56 percent before the New York Stock Exchange halted trading.
...
Circuit City fell 14 cents to 11 cents at 9:30 a.m. before the start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE halted buying and selling of the shares after the stock's early plunge.
...
On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from a year earlier after sales fell for the sixth straight quarter.

Without well motivated sales-persons any specialized retailer can only lose.

Here the shareholders lost too. No tears for them. Why did they not stop the disastrous management plans?

Only long term Circuit City CEO Philip Schoonover, who was only fired six weeks ago, made a fortune by ruining the company. He got more than twice per year of what successful retail chain CEO's got. From the second link:

Chief Executive Officer Philip Schoonover was paid $8.52 million in fiscal 2006, including a salary of $975,000. Best Buy CEO

Main How To Ruin A Retail Company

A prime case study on how to ruin a retail company:

• Profits from sales were down a bit, because some retail sales changed to the Internets.
• Management switched salespersons from commission based pay to meager hourly wages.
• Sales droped further.
• Management fired long-term, experienced and expensive salespersons and hires unqualified but cheaper people instead.
• Sales drop further.
• Overpaid management gets fired.
• New management finds the company is bankrupt.

Circuit City Fires 2,000 Workers to Cut Costs, Feb. 6, 2003
Circuit City Stores Inc. has fired 2,000 people, including salespeople at its outlet near Gateway Mall in Springfield, in a move to cut costs.

The electronics retailer announced it is firing 5 percent of its work force and also converting commissioned sales people to hourly pay.

Circuit City to Fire 3,400, Hire Less Costly Workers, March 28, 2007
Circuit City Stores Inc., the second-largest U.S. electronics retailer after Best Buy Co., fired 3,400 of its highest-paid hourly workers and will hire replacements willing to work for less.
...
"Firing 3,400 of arguably the most successful sales people in the company could prove terrible for morale," Colin McGranahan, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein & Co., wrote in a note today. "The question remains as to whether Circuit City can rebuild in time for the all-important holiday season."
...
Circuit City shares rose 35 cents to $19.23 at 4:18 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
...
In 2003, Circuit City switched employees from commission- based pay to hourly pay, matching an earlier move by Best Buy. That switch had a "dramatically negative impact on sales," McGranahan said today.

Circuit City, Electronics Retailer, Seeks Bankruptcy , Nov. 10, 2008
The petition for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia, listed $3.4 billion in assets and $2.32 billion in liabilities, driving the shares down 56 percent before the New York Stock Exchange halted trading.
...
Circuit City fell 14 cents to 11 cents at 9:30 a.m. before the start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE halted buying and selling of the shares after the stock's early plunge.
...
On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from a year earlier after sales fell for the sixth straight quarter.

Without well motivated sales-persons any specialized retailer can only lose.

Here the shareholders lost too. No tears for them. Why did they not stop the disastrous management plans?

Only long term Circuit City CEO Philip Schoonover, who was only fired six weeks ago, made a fortune by ruining the company. He got more than twice per year of what successful retail chain CEO's got. From the second link:

Chief Executive Officer Philip Schoonover was paid $8.52 million in fiscal 2006, including a salary of $975,000. Best Buy CEO

Main How To Ruin A Retail Company

A prime case study on how to ruin a retail company:

• Profits from sales were down a bit, because some retail sales changed to the Internets.
• Management switched salespersons from commission based pay to meager hourly wages.
• Sales droped further.
• Management fired long-term, experienced and expensive salespersons and hires unqualified but cheaper people instead.
• Sales drop further.
• Overpaid management gets fired.
• New management finds the company is bankrupt.

Circuit City Fires 2,000 Workers to Cut Costs, Feb. 6, 2003
Circuit City Stores Inc. has fired 2,000 people, including salespeople at its outlet near Gateway Mall in Springfield, in a move to cut costs.

The electronics retailer announced it is firing 5 percent of its work force and also converting commissioned sales people to hourly pay.

Circuit City to Fire 3,400, Hire Less Costly Workers, March 28, 2007
Circuit City Stores Inc., the second-largest U.S. electronics retailer after Best Buy Co., fired 3,400 of its highest-paid hourly workers and will hire replacements willing to work for less.
...
"Firing 3,400 of arguably the most successful sales people in the company could prove terrible for morale," Colin McGranahan, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein & Co., wrote in a note today. "The question remains as to whether Circuit City can rebuild in time for the all-important holiday season."
...
Circuit City shares rose 35 cents to $19.23 at 4:18 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
...
In 2003, Circuit City switched employees from commission- based pay to hourly pay, matching an earlier move by Best Buy. That switch had a "dramatically negative impact on sales," McGranahan said today.

Circuit City, Electronics Retailer, Seeks Bankruptcy , Nov. 10, 2008
The petition for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia, listed $3.4 billion in assets and $2.32 billion in liabilities, driving the shares down 56 percent before the New York Stock Exchange halted trading.
...
Circuit City fell 14 cents to 11 cents at 9:30 a.m. before the start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE halted buying and selling of the shares after the stock's early plunge.
...
On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from a year earlier after sales fell for the sixth straight quarter.

Without well motivated sales-persons any specialized retailer can only lose.

Here the shareholders lost too. No tears for them. Why did they not stop the disastrous management plans?

Only long term Circuit City CEO Philip Schoonover, who was only fired six weeks ago, made a fortune by ruining the company. He got more than twice per year of what successful retail chain CEO's got. From the second link:

Chief Executive Officer Philip Schoonover was paid $8.52 million in fiscal 2006, including a salary of $975,000. Best Buy CEO

The Roman Catholic Church had the Inquisition starting in the 1200s to persecute heresy, which the Popes saw as a threat to their power in Europe.

Women only "recently" gained equal rights. In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was passed by the United Nations. Not exactly a long standing history of women rights. Oh, and the United States is the only developed nation that hasn't even ratified this convention.

And lets talk about freedom. California has passed Proposition 8, along with other amendments in Florida, which removes the civil rights for gays and lesbians to marry.
Replace the words "Gay" in Gay Marriage with "Interracial" and all of a sudden its something completely different to people. Yet its the same thing: removal of the freedom for people to choose who can visit them in the hospital, who can make medical decisions for them, automatic inheritance, spousal/child support, support to sue for wrongful death of a spouse and so on. And while religious groups claim that marriage is a holy sanction, remember that Freedom of Religion is also Freedom FROM Religion. When you allow religion to choose your civil liberties, you are no better than the muslims who stone raped women accused of adultery in stadiums because its in their religion. It wasnt long ago that African-Americans had their own schools, doors and drinking fountains.

And considering we just had 8 years of Bush, a United Methodist, with him invading sovereign nations, I find "peace is un-islamic" a bit of a narrow definition.

This is not exhaustive, but try this.

The relationship held even when adjusted for income.

and both suffer from the delusion (common in managers) that if they don't know much about it, it nevertheless can't be too complicated.

[Citation needed]

Obama has a history of calling up knowledgeable people and asking them for advice, like when he called up SEC chair Bill Donaldson over a year before the financial markets collapsed:

Donaldson, who was tapped by Bush to head the SEC, says Obama called him last year about the financial-regulatory problems. He has never heard from McCain.

``Obama has been talking about the need for better financial regulation well before this crisis hit and has done some real thinking about it,'' says Donaldson, a lifelong Republican. ``McCain comes across as someone who suddenly realized changes have to be made.''

Actually I think his quote was that Fannie and Freddie are

"a fundamentally flawed model, which privatizes profits and socializes losses."

I'll buy the argument that Freddie and Fannie alone aren't the whole problem but I don't see this crisis happening without them.

Other stories are pointing out that he also repudiated the free market.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_IH5AnCyOm4&refer=home

Greenspan Concedes to 'Flaw' in His Market Ideology (Update2)
By Scott Lanman and Steve Matthews

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami" has engulfed financial markets and conceded that his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.

"Yes, I found a flaw," Greenspan said in response to grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "That is precisely the reason I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."

>>They used anti-terror laws against Iceland, who are not at all terrorists.

>When? Do you have a cite on this?

It's well known. Google "iceland terror" and - among lots of others - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a9R6kEktPff0&refer=europe

The government wound in some "independent" reviewer of anti-terror legislation to claim the bit of the Act they used wasn’t really anti-terror legislation. You can judge how independent he is by the fact that the same man stood up in Parliament a few days later to argue in favour of a (now defeated) proposal to allow the police to lock "terrorist suspects" up for 6 weeks at a stretch.

We used to sneer at all those tinpot Balkan dictatorships where you had to carry identity papers everywhere, the police could lock anyone up on a whim, and the only telephones you could buy were designed to allow Them to monitor you. And they used to make unbelievably weird claims about the evils of foreign governments. Then we went and elected a Labour government ...

Apparently they are catching people stupid enough to attempt hijackings. While no technology can be completely effective in blocking those willing to die for their cause, we have certainly cut down on the DB Cooper and asylum seeker types, haven't we?

Absolutely . With the $25 billion bailouts for the other Car Manufactures (Slow Loading . . .), we could all have Tesla cars. The big Car Manufacturers should ally themselves with Tesla Motors, or Time to cut the cord.

quick quote for those that don't wanna wait for that slow as fucking shit to load.

"Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler LLC and U.S. auto-parts makers are seeking $50 billion in government-backed loans, double their initial request, to develop and build more fuel-efficient vehicles."

The whole situation in America is completely back-ass-wards as well as completely unsustainable. We shouldn't be paying $700 billion to the same people that gambled, we should toss them in jail forever. IF $700 billion should be used for anything it should be used to start manufacturing something again.

Not one penny of benefit will be seen by Main Street from this bailout bull crap! It's been lies from the beginning. Fucking government bank robbers. AIG continues to draw on their "credit line" with The Fed. Why suddenly is there $80 billion of hard money required in a business that is "fundamentally sound" in excess of cash flow, and where that requirement did not previously exist?

When the fuck are we going to breakout with the Federal Prosecutors!? After the dollar is worth Zero?

For more detail on this check out: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=special_report&sid=aWR3tZqO3hJE

For a history of the whole mess check out: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=specialreport&srnum=2

For more detail on this check out: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=special_report&sid=aWR3tZqO3hJE

For a history of the whole mess check out: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=specialreport&srnum=2

What I find ever more concerning is not only the amount of spying, but how contrived the use of spying equipment has become.

Thanks to the The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, originally intended to prevent crime and stop terrorism, state bodies and councils are now authorised to use spying equipment almost at their volition.

According to an article on bloomberg, such use includes tracking down dog owners who fail to clean up after their four-legged friends, as well as catching people who are dumping waste etc.

This demonstrates how the laws can and will be used.

It justifies those who believe that when laws are proposed you should think of how it could be abused, not just how it could be used.

"The Treasury released a document to Parliament yesterday showing it used sections of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 to take control of the bank's assets, saying in the statement the bank's collapse may harm the U.K. economy. "

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aXjIA5NzyM5c

The people who are delusional are the ones who think you can fix the problem of inflation with more inflation.

There has been talk about closing down the international markets and starting a new Bretton Woods type agreement. Of course this new agreement has probably been written and just waiting for this crisis, just like the PATRIOT ACT was written before 9/11 and the current bailout bill was written back in March.

It is great to know that the institutions that helped create this mess are now the ones who will pose as the saviors of it. If you think that its accidental then you may be the one who is delusional. There was plenty of people warning about this crisis for many years (click the link in my signature to find them). Those people aren't some genius prophets, they just stated the obvious.

Remember that the primary function of government is to pretend to fail.

On September 10, 2001 Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon couldn't account for $2.3 trillion. They don't really need the bailout.

Rep. Brad Sherman from California has mentioned that the bailout will be used to buy assets from foreign banks (such as China and Saudi Arabia). Banks in the US will just keep getting absorbed by the larger banks, such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

CNBC is also reporting this morning that they will both be nationalized today or this weekend! They'll basically be used to launder money to foreign banks as a payoff. This is the last looting of the American people by foreigners. That's why the government stopped reporting statistics a few months ago on foreign investment inside the US.

Welcome to freedom, comrade!

There is also talk of shutting down the international markets and creating a new Bretton Woods type deal. Don't think for a second that this new Bretton Woods deal wasn't already written and waiting for this crisis to occur.

I posted this on the reg but may as well put it here too: a week before Bear Stearns totally crashed, someone made an insane bet by putting $1.7 million in put options that were below 50% of where the price was trading at. The options had only 10 days until expiration. However, in only a week the price dropped that 50% and the owner of those options made over $270 million dollars. This type of play is senseless, even impossible without insider information, conspiracy, or time travel.

http://stockbee.blogspot.com/2008/08/bear-raid-on-bears-stearns.html This blog post has a majority of the original Bloomberg article which has since been moved/removed.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=afzzM6PgwfH8 This Bloomberg article mentions the same event but in a more convoluted and passive way. Also, for some reason this article forwards me to a malware site every so often, so beware.

It is the first week in October. Both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates stood by the bill. The fear beyond Wall Street is real and growing. Job Losses Pushing U.S. Economy Into `Significant' Recession You act when action becomes possible. You act before fear becomes panic.

Car dealer #3: Really? We can barely keep them on the lot

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a53gio3BiJec&refer=japan

Prius sales fell 4 percent this year through August, a decline Toyota blames on insufficient inventory. ``We still have about a 48-hour supply of Prius and a pretty big waiting list,'' Lentz said.

It's gotta be great as a car company when sales are going down because you can't make them fast enough

They've already found wreckage, so this is basically a sure thing. The real question is did Fossett survive the crash, and if so where did he go on-foot. If he died were his remains consumed by wild animals (wild cats and bears), possibly making it impossible to ever recover them.

Perhaps I haven't been paying close enough attention, but I am under the impression that they intend to pay above the mark to market prices but (well!) below the hold to maturity prices.

If they are planning on paying the nominal values, well that's just crazy. Of course, I'm nearly 100% certain that they are not planning on paying the nominal value. Once they start to buy the assets, other people will want to participate, and there will be something closer to a functional market, and banks will be able to reduce risk exposure (and eventually, the government will be able to sell what it buys back into the market).

So the plan would require hundreds of billions of dollars, but it will probably only cost tens of billions of dollars, and it may even be a net gain for the government.

(The interest wouldn't be premium either: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aBEM0cTTdBmA&refer=columnist_berry)

Well, it's rather brutal here. Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns.

That's what Barton Biggs, former chief strategist at Morgan Stanley told everyone to do in his book earlier this year.

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Barton Biggs has some offbeat advice for the rich: Insure yourself against war and disaster by buying a remote farm or ranch and stocking it with ``seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc.''

The ``etc.'' must mean guns.

Democracy actually worked here! The population seemed apprehensive about the bill, and congress decided that it was best to address the problem in smaller steps.

While Democracy was working the Federal Reserve was creating $630 billion out of nothing and putting it into the financial system.

While watching C-Span today I think my favorite line was from Brad Sherman (D-CA): "Just because all of your constituents oppose this bill does not make it an act of courage to vote for it."

Meanwhile, Congress is going to keep trying to give $700B to the financial sector.

Don't worry, the Federal Reserve is to the rescue. While everyone was watching Congress on the bailout the FED decided to pump $630 billion into the financial system.

Democracy works!

So the Framm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. So what?

Seems like the non-commercial-bank investment banks (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) are the ones who screwed up the most and went down biggest, as did the non-commercial-bank GSEs.

Perhaps that regulation change contributed to IndyMac and WaMu going down (I don't know how much they failed because of primary versus secondary market mortgages), but to date very few "universal" commercial banks with investment banking arms have actually gone down. Infact it looks like "universal" bank JP Morgan Chase is about the rescue WaMu, something that would have been impossible before the FSMA.

Now if you were talking about regulation that said "it is illegal to loan someone more than 80% of the value of their house", maybe, just maybe that would have cooled the housing bubble and reduced the risk of subprime default (assuming most people would not have found some way to sneak a loan from their parents or whatever for the 20% downpayment). But then everyone who believes in "affordable housing" would have flipped out.

As it is, though, I can't agree that an adviser on Presidential transition is some kind of insignificant connection.

An adviser on the hypothetical and future transition... Most insignificant...

Directed about $47 million in lobbying from 2003 to 2006.

Again, assuming a linear relation, this person is about 400 times more compromised than Obama.

Here you are equating "directing" with "receiving".

I think there's at least a few more on the campaign, plus a dozen or so fundraisers for McCain.

And Obama has none, right?.. All of those 47% of the Democratic recipients of F&F monies have retired and have no hand in Obama's campaign?.. Only the Republicans are hungry for more and thus working for McCain...

More importantly than any of the attempts to assign corruption-coefficients is the fact, that McCain and others have introduced a bill, that went against Fannie and Freddie... But the Democrats opposed it on a party line — according to the article. Perhaps, you can discuss it with your acquaintances among Congressional leaders, and post the results? Clearly, the Democrats have sided with Fannie and Freddie — against McCain and the other co-sponsors.

Troopergate is interesting as a test of how important process and rule-of-law are to Palin

Yeah, she wanted a man, who threatened to kill his ex father-in-law and tasered his own 10 year-old son, to not be a police officer in her State. An outrageous violation of the due process on rule-of-law. Yep... Can be compared with Clinton using Arkansas troopers to deliver women to him.

I don't know, who the "repubs" want to pay, but the Democrats' intentions are certainly "less than honorable". Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama are the two-highest beneficiaries of the Fannie and Freddie lobbying efforts -- despite the vast accounting irregularities of both monsters.

IIRC, the total lobbying effort of Fannie and Freddie has been in the hundreds of millions, and the Obama campaign's share is about $112,000. I'm not sure he's received more than 1-2% of their attention. The lobbying effort has been so huge that I doubt there are very many federal offices that haven't been touched by it.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0912/p03s01-usec.html

There are certainly connections with the McCain campaign:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aQIOOr9klOnE&refer=home
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html

Not that this is a partisan issue. It's pretty clear Fannie and Freddie really worked hard to have as much influence as possible, and I think that's one of the reasons why the recent bailout had a provision that they had to curtail lobbying activity.

The repubs want to pay the same morons who got themselves into this mess $17k/hr of government money, because heaven forbid someone who is rich actually have to take responsibility for anything bad.

I don't know, who the "repubs" want to pay, but the Democrats' intentions are certainly "less than honorable". Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama are the two-highest beneficiaries of the Fannie and Freddie lobbying efforts — despite the vast accounting irregularities of both monsters.

If you are looking for "morons", they aren't on Wall Street. Some of those people may be arrogant assholes, but "morons" they aren't. The morons are people, who bought houses they had no way of affording without reading the fine print. It is impossible for any democrat (and I don't mean the political party here, but anybody associating with the Demos rather than Optimates) to blame the "ordinary people", so they blame the bankers and mortgage brokers to help unqualified people get mortgages. That the "victims" who got the mortgages are morons is not explicitly stated...

The vicious irony of it all is that Fannie and Freddi were both created for the same purpose — to give mortgages to people, who were otherwise unqualified to receive them. But that was a Democratic effort (New Deal — woo-hoo!), and we can't blame them in the newspapers, can we?

Do you honestly believe that mark to market is the main culprit in the crisis?

The main? Not sure. One of the main? Definitely. Notice, how the banks like BofA and JPM are sitting pretty — and were even in a position to buy the failing investment banks (Bear Stearns went to JPMorgan earlier this year, Merill Lynch — to BofA last week). They have the same "toxic" securities. But they don't have to account for them in the same way — they are allowed to use certain financial models to come up with a price for the paper the are holding, rather than being forced to price it at today's market prices... In a normal (liquid) market there is little difference. In one spooked (even temporarily) by mortgage-related panic — it is a difference between life and death. Because if nobody wants that paper today (even though its issuer is solvent, and continues to pay dividends, etc.), then, under the "mark to market" requirements, the paper is worth zero and you have no collateral. You lose your credit ratings (automatically). And then, immediately, your counterparties are seizing whatever other collateral you may have put up to guarantee deals, and, whooops, your (ex-)employees are carrying out their stuff out of your (ex-)offices...

Perhaps, the main culprit were Freddie and Fannie. Created to address a "market inefficiency" — no sane banker would risk giving their own money to anyone, who managed (in this blessed country!) to stay too poor to have any money for a downpayment — they grew up into two disasters. Here is one, somewhat partisan, opinion. You may disagree with person, but some of the facts there (the main beneficiaries of their lobbying efforts, and their accounting irregularities ) are indisputable.

In fact, the tearing down of the barrier between commercial banking and investment banking allowed multiple conflicts of interest in investment banks, now also involved in brokerage and insurance and other areas.

These are empty words — and a spin. Here they are restated, spun just as convincingly in the opposite direction: "In fact, the tearing down of the barriers between different financial activities allowed for greater efficiency and the benefits of the economy of scale, thus allowing better-tailored financial products to be offered to clients at lower fees."

And my spin above is closer to truth than yours. Because yours is similar to arguing against air-travel using air-crashes as an example. Yes, an air-plane can crash — in particular, if it touches the ground however slightly during flight. But it can bring passengers much further, much faster, and for much less, than any previously known method of transportation. This is little consolation, when you picking up bodies from the wreckage, but remains an objective truth.

You never know who to believe. But I found this (obviously) partisan account of a 2005 bill to clean up Freddie and Fannie Mac interesting. I wonder what was the reason for the Democrat opposition? I wish we had more discussion of issues and alternatives and not just stumping and name calling.

My take, if you aren't going to regulate than the government should not insure or bail-out. Messy buyer beware captiatlism. If you are going to offer government insurance or bail-out than there needs to be strings attached. We can't give incentives for undue risk - just like the "government guarantee" of morgate backed securities.

The US has not ratified it, and refuses to do so.

Actually, the US-UK Extradition Treaty 2003 was ratified unanimously by by the US Senate in 2006

Add to that, researching the 2005 bill that forced FM/FM to give out loans based on racial profiles instead of financial stability, and you'll have a good idea who to blame.

No, no. That is not the underlying source of FNM and FRE's problems. The problem lies in that they issued bonds which had the implicit backing of the federal government to raise cash which was then used to buy (then highly-rated) Alt-A loan-backed bonds.

The idea was since the Alt-A bonds were yielding higher than the cost to FNM and FRE's issued bonds they could make "free" money. Think about it. If you could borrow from the bank at 4% then put it back in a savings account at 6%, you pocket 2%. This is called the carry.

The reason the GSEs were able to do this is people felt (technically erroneously at the time, but it turned out to be true) that the bonds issued were government-backed (effectively like a Treasury Bond). This was assumed because at one point they were not at all private but wholly government owned companies and thus the government wouldn't let them fail (along with "too big to fail" idea).

Some (like Greenspan) advocate the break up (or the full privatization) of the GSEs which would allow them to be treated completely like private companies (and then bailed out like Bear or AIG).

Vista doesn't seem to be hurting HP's bottom line:

After the bell, Hewlett-Packard reported a 14.0% increase in third-quarter profits on strong laptop sales and growth in its international markets.

Investors have been worried HP was losing market share to rivals Dell and Apple but so far that has not happened. The company has been helped by cost cuts and strong sales outside the United States.

But nothing in the company's numbers speaks of a downturn. HP reported fiscal third-quarter net earnings of $2.0 billion, or 80 cents a share, up 14% from $1.8 billion, or 66 cents a share, in the prior year. HP Holds Its Own {August 19]

HP seems to showing more interest in European styling:

Instead of building workhorse machines in utilitarian cases, Hewlett-Packard strives to create sleeker, more stylish PCs by looking to the fabrics and shapes in Italy's furniture showrooms, said Stacy Wolff, director of notebook-computer design.

Putting form and function before component costs mirrors a strategy by Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, whose aluminum-clad desktops and notebooks have propelled the company to its highest PC market share in at least a decade.

Hewlett-Packard had 19 percent of worldwide PC shipments in the second quarter, compared with Dell's 16 percent, according to technology researcher IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts. Hewlett- Packard has increased its share every quarter since taking the lead from Dell in 2006. Apple had 3.6 percent. Hewlett-Packard's Cues From Milan Lift PC Profit [Updated August 19]

7 hours? Is that all you can do? We managed a 3 day outage earlier this year at the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCTlooFV6H0Y&refer=home

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahjlNLo_3TFE&refer=home

She did not fire that cop for the right reasons. She fired him for the wrong reasons. And you should not encourage that.

I don't see how the link you provided shows the 'reasons'.

For all we know, the divorce triggered the event, and the only reason she knew about it was family, but it really does seem as though the officer should have been fired. It is, from the information available, at least conceivable that the safety officer was not doing his job.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahjlNLo_3TFE&refer=home

She did not fire that cop for the right reasons. She fired him for the wrong reasons. And you should not encourage that.

She tried to get a state trooper fired for divorcing her sister and after that failed, fired his boss for not firing him.

Am I missing something here? It appears that the treaty has been ratified, and U.S. citizens can be extradited to the U.K. for any crime without any evidence being presented in a U.S. court.

and with all the shitty stunt china pulls, in tibet, in darfur, suppressing bloggers, olympics are all the while less attractive.

Add beating Japanese journalists, and new sidewalks already falling apart to the list. We already know their environmental initiatives aren't sustainable, but when it comes to construction and the press, they aren't even trying.

Umm.. Actually, we are using substantially more today. But..

But the point isn't to replace all our oil. It is to supplement the demand by increasing supply. If we are just meeting demand right now, then increasing supply by 10% will ease the inflation due to speculation. Also if we were to prohibit futures contracts to anyone not capable of taking delivery, we could loosen the effect of speculation too.

The biggest problem we have now is that the speculators lock up the future supply which make the users nervous and willing to pay more for contracts and spot prices. Currently, the future prices are pretty much even or higher then the spot prices which is a little disturbing considering that before we relaxes the futures trade on oil in the late 90's, the differences were future oil being about 15-30 percent cheaper then the spot prices.

So if we can increase production from the US (it needs to be separated from the middle east's stability issues) to a point where there is more supply then speculators can lock up and resell, then their drive on the market will lose strength and lower prices. If you want a hint of how much speculation controls the markets, we went from $140/bbl one day to $125 another with only a report claiming US usage is going down. Speculators started dumping contracts that they couldn't take possession of because of the lack of facilities or capabilities. On the same notes, pump prices dropped a little too but not a whole lot.

Also something worth considering is that we aren't suggesting drilling as a fix. It is only part of the fix. Raising fuel mileage standards will take a lot longer to see a return then drilling, switching to and developing alternative energies will take longer too. This is mostly because not everyone buy a new car every year and the "tech" just isn't available right now. We also have a problem with saving in fuel mileage and all verses population growth and the growth of energy demands. If we increase our population by 3% a year over the next ten years and lower/raise cafe standards by 25% in the next 10 years, the excess demand for energy will outweigh any savings from efficiency. Let do some simple math. Lets assume we have 100 people and the fuel ratings are at 20mpg currently and that gives us a demand for 1000 gallons of fuel a year.. That gives us 134 people in 10 years(34 extra). Now that means currently, we use 100 gallons per person. Without the Cafe changes, that would increase our usage to 1200 gallons. So a 25% increase in fuel economy would be about 25mpg in ten years.

So a 25% better fuel economy (25mpg) would mean that for the same 100 people we would need 750 gallons or 7.5 gallons per person instead of 10. A pretty good savings right? Well, when we increase that by the population increase which is exponential, we end up with a usage of 1005 gallons (5 more then we started with). Now mix in alternative fuels and it starts looking like we can do something. But.. There is a problem. There isn't one authority that can demand this change all across the world which means that without limiting other countries population growth to the same or lowers numbers while demanding more efficient vehicles, is there, we will most likely end up with less of a supply and an increased demand. And none of this takes into consideration that the 34 extra people will be driving further for work or the fact that the average life span of a car is about 15 years before it is scrapped if it isn't wrecked first. That means a portion of the population would still be driving the older and less efficient cars for a while when the population continues to grow.

You see, it really is a complicated situation that will require tackling it from a lot of positions. Drilling is just one aspect of it. People seem to act like that is the only thing the conservatives are purposing. But it isn't. In fact, McCain is purposing a $5000 tax credit to anyone who buys a zero emissions car, he has wants to increase CAFE standard

From this gamesindustry.biz article the judge has banned sales of the Wii Classic Controller, Wavebird and Gamecube Classic Controllers.

Sony licensed the patent from Anascape, MSFT got sued as well, but settled. Nintendo fought and lost in court to the tune of $21M. The suit included the Wii controllers, but Nintendo was found not guilty.

There's more information here at bloomberg.