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no evidence that this is occurring

Please see the video in my post above for "some evidence".

This study blames known instances of methane contamination on a small number of sub-standard operations, and encourages the use of industry best practices to prevent such events from recurring.[30]

My guess is that including gas fracking back into the "Clean Water and Air Act" will go a long way to "encourage the use of industry best practices", otherwise we are looking at another BP Gulf of Mexico type disaster, except this time in Pennsylvania.

Can India, China or Viet Nam build one reactor and keep it safe? Perhaps. Can they build dozens and have them all work without a disaster? Absolutely not. There is not a sufficient culture of regulatory independence to insure safe operation. If the regulators failed in Japan, do you think they will succeed in any of these countries?

It is not even clear the the US or any of the European countries are immune from this kind of failure. The only way we will find out that there is a problem is when the radiation detectors go off.

Want an example? Half the licensed nuclear facilities in the US are not in compliance whit NRC fire regulations.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is routinely waiving fire rule violations at nearly half the nation's 104 commercial reactors, even though fire presents one of the chief hazards at nuclear plants.

The policy, the result of a series of little-noticed decisions in recent years, is meant to encourage nuclear companies to remedy longstanding fire safety problems. But critics say it is leaving decades-old fire hazards in place as the NRC fails to enforce its own rules.

...

At the Browns Ferry plant in Alabama, where a devastating cable fire 36 years ago prompted the NRC to adopt tough new fire rules, the plant still doesn't comply with the requirements to protect cables.

http://www.propublica.org/article/nrc-waives-enforcement-of-fire-rules-at-nuclear-plants/single

"And many bankers knew the derivatives they created from those bad loans (which they sold back and forth to reach a leverage of about 30x) were not worthy of the AAA rating the ratings agencies gave them."

Hell, some companies deliberately set things up so they would fail. Check out the Magnetar Trades...

"The hedge fund bought the riskiest portion of a kind of securities known as collateralized debt obligations -- CDOs. If housing prices kept rising, this would provide a solid return for many years. But that's not what hedge funds are after. They want outsized gains, the sooner the better, and Magnetar set itself up for a huge win: It placed bets that portions of its own deals would fail."

"Magnetar pressed to include riskier assets in their CDOs that would make the investments more vulnerable to failure. "

In other words, they set up unstable investment funds in an increasingly risky market. They then bet against (hedged) their own funds so that they'd make even more money when the failed. Which then happened.

The worse part? Almost everything done was legal under the rules at the time. CDO's were a completely unregulated market. Can't even arrest the bastards and shoot 'em...

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going/single

Since the HUD consolidated all of these bad loans in one place, it was like a bomb going off.

[...]

And now we have a bunch of protesters pissed off at Wall St. Huh? Perfect example of people being brainwashed by our government.

Duty calls.

Of all the misinformation you have in your post (ACORN? Really? Get thee to Glen Beck!) , these are the two most egregious, since they come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between government and investment banks.

First. The government does not create investment vehicles beyond government bonds. I 'm sorry, but it just doesn't. HUD did not create collateralized-debt-obligations / credit-default-swaps. That was the brain trusts on Wall Street. They were able to securitize and resecuritize these risky loans, due to deregulation of the banking industry. Actually, when it comes to the derivatives market, there aren't any regulations.

Second. No one forced anyone to buy the CDOs. While the first generation of CDOs probably was a good investments, the later generations weren't. They were so bad, that investment banks and hedge funds such as Magnatar Capital were knowingly creating CDOs that would fail, and were shorting them, all the while selling them to their clients as rock solid investments. That is fraud.

That is why people are pissed off. They're pissed off at Wall Street for crashing the economy while making billions on our troubles. They're pissed of at the government for putting policies in place since the 1980s and policies advocated by The Most Blessed, Saint Ronald of Hollywood, Peace Be Upon Him. Polices such as cutting the capital gains taxes. Removing regulations that stabilized the economy and set us on the path to become the preeminent economic power of the 20th century. Essentially, polices that punished work, and rewarded wealth. These are policies backed by Wall Street, and pushed by their lackys in Washington. These are the policies of the GOP. Just look at the charts. And while we're at it, I suggest you look at the national debt chart, and tell me who really cuts government spending.

And you know what I'm pissed off about? No one on Wall Street, is being prosecuted for fraud.

The French knew how to deal with our Wall Street problem.

1) One bunch of Obama supporters ("Occupy Wall Street") is protesting another bunch of Obama supporters (Wall Street). Boy, that sounds convincing and not a charade at all.

2) Why don't these dickheads protest the Fannie and Freddie bailouts? The bank "bailouts" (I use sneer quotes because the banks didn't need the money, and if they did need capital, could raise it privately, like Goldman Sachs did) were profitable (Soros outfit Propublica has the details here). By comparison (see the link), the big money pits are Fannie (not a bank), Freddie (not a bank), General Motors (not a bank), GMAC (GM's financing arm, and also not a bank, and should have been left to collapse with GM), Chrysler (not a bank), and AIG (not a bank). Why don't they protest them? They're the unprofitable bailouts, after all.

3) They're not complaining about "bailouts", they're just complaining about not getting any of the bailout bucks. If the government forgave their student loans, they'd be ecstatic - but that's a bailout, no?

The USA spend 1757 Billion $ on bailouts in the years 2008 and 2009 for banks, insurance groups and the auto industry. But of course they keep on saying that the well-fare state is too big and we all live beyond our means. We all need to cut costs to save the banks, because we know that without the banks and Wall Street there would be no civilization.

http://www.propublica.org/special/government-bailouts

because they need the money to pay our troops.

....and to bail out financial institutions that got us in trouble n the first place and to fund tax cuts for the rich.

Pro-Publica is a new and viable model for non-profit investigative journalism. They constantly impress me (take a look at their awards) and put most other news orgs to shame. If only other public media orgs would take notice and stop being such MSM wannbes. I'm looking at you NPR.

The non-profit, online-only journalism model is being tested out across the country to some notable success.

You are right, and Pro Publica is a great exemplar of investigative journalism done right in the service of its audience.They collaborated with This American Life to do an audio episode based on the stories that won them the Pulitzer and it was fantastic - you can download the podcast version here.

However, before the Slashbot crowd comes out to cite this as proof positive that nobody should have to pay for news, information wants to be free, the establishment is keeping them down, skateboarding is not a crime, etc. - it should be noted that Pro Publica was created specifically to do a certain kind of investigative reporting and relies on donations and grants from organizations that think the commercial media don't do enough of those stories. i.e., there is something that the commercial press doesn't do, and people are willing to donate in order to fill that particular need.

Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is a sustainable model in which foundations will give out grants or individuals will donate to have someone cover your local city council meeting, write up the police blotter, ask questions at White House press conferences or report on the scene from the Zimbabwean elections - the kind of thing that the Associated Press and individual for-profit media (TV or newspaper/online) outlets do. So while Pro Publica is a wonderful resource and a great example of how non-profit journalism can work, it is not necessarily a replacement for the existing commercial media industry.

1. The Magnetar Trade
2. The 'Subsidy'
3. Banks' Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis
4. The Timeline of Magnetar's Deals

1. The Magnetar Trade
2. The 'Subsidy'
3. Banks' Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis
4. The Timeline of Magnetar's Deals

1. The Magnetar Trade
2. The 'Subsidy'
3. Banks' Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis
4. The Timeline of Magnetar's Deals

1. The Magnetar Trade
2. The 'Subsidy'
3. Banks' Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis
4. The Timeline of Magnetar's Deals

1. The Magnetar Trade
2. The 'Subsidy'
3. Banks' Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis
4. The Timeline of Magnetar's Deals

The non-profit, online-only journalism model is being tested out across the country to some notable success. Granted, the orgs tend to partner with print and TV media to get their stories a wider audience (like ProPublica has done with the NYT, NPR and FrontLine), but the non-profit membership model of news gathering (like your local NPR affiliate or like ProPublica) is gaining steam.

Freedom of the press doesn't guarantee quality, which is what I think we all want. Put your money where your eyeballs are and throw a few bucks at ProPublica if you admire their work.

I don't work for them, btw... just a fan.

tear gas.

Cheer!

Yours In Novosbirsk,
Kilgore Trout, C.I.O.

People seem to leave this part out. They keep screaming about the 'bailouts' and tax payer money being 'wasted'. That money has been, for the most part, repaid, with interest.

Baloney. Of the $550B disbursed, only $230B has been returned and that doesn't take into account the cost of money for the interim.

The banking system encouraged "liar loans" so that they would have more mortages to package up into bonds and bundled into CDOs. They made more money off investment securities than they ever did simply lending money, and the CDO market was COMPLETELY unregulated. You can't create mortgage packages without mortgages to back them up.

Then hedge funds like Magnetar got into the act, and fueled the boom even further.

Want to see pure greed in action? Check out Magnetar, who deliberately created investments DESIGNED to fail, specifically so they could bet against them in the market.

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going

Incorrect. $551 billion was spent via TARP, and we've only received $248 billion of it back (not even half).

http://www.propublica.org/ion/bailout

i think hands-off regulation is acceptable, like the ownership, owners also owning industrial concerns, etc. but not direct editorial control. that's as good as having no media, just a bigger propaganda arm of the government. then how does one even come to know of the government's abuses? look at pravda and xinhua and their past history. look at North Korea's "media".

i also think that individual action is needed, and that wikileaks and charity-driven groups like propublica are crucial to a news renaissance. http://www.propublica.org/about

but that's supply side thinking. we need to find a way to up the demand for news as facts rather than polemic.

Not all dead. The latest addition to my RSS reader: http://www.propublica.org/

Who cares about open formats if the records are just going to be falsified anyway?

...but to say BP had no safe guards and to call them a rogue corporation is just plain bullshit...

Oooo... another apologist on the attack! So this isn't rogue enough for you? They invested a lot more in covering up than anything else.

I hate to sound pessimistic, but what good is a letter to my Congressman when some media conglomerate can afford to pay lobbyists to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars into his reelection campaign? I can't even afford to buy him Springsteen tickets.

C) Philanthropically funded media e.g. propublica.org

http://www.propublica.org/about/

D) Micro-philanthropically funded media: please start one.

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ATK, and the United Space Alliance on track once again to spend over $50 million for lobbying efforts in 2010, including educational activities like treating Congressmen to luxury box Springsteen tickets.

Crooks can just salt the scene of the crime with DNA not their own.
 
DNA tests are not quick, either - forget what you have seen on TV. The FBI backlog is overwhelming, as it is for State labs in most cities. DNA evidence collected at a crime scene is likely not to be analyzed before the trial date.
 
New York City doesn't have the money to do this, anyhow. The cost would be exorbitant, even with a balanced budget.

No, that is a broken philosophy. In two ways:

1) In the modern trading environment, making short-term quarterly goals is overemphasized to the point of sacrificing long term prosperity. There's something to be said for demanding returns within a certain timeframe, but 4 months is too short.

2) It can be trivially shown that mankind could drive itself into distinction, all the while with a majority of investors "making money." The lack of a moral imperative to not only be personally profitable, but also be a net contributor, is what is broken about our current business culture. It's what brings us lovely scenarios like giant oil companies evolving a culture of disregard for safety.
 

BTW, in case it's not obvious, I meant to say "random and unpreventable"

I agreed more with your first version. "Black Swan Events" are random and unpredictable, but not unpreventable or unmitigable. BP's overly optimistic and/or delusional views about the risks involved and their abilities to respond to a massive spill created unnecessary exposure to a calamitous event. Cf. BP's own exploration plan. or download the entire PDF direct from the Minerals Management Service. Note sections 2.7, 7.1 and 7.2 in particular.

It boils down to risk vs. reward (or profit and loss if you prefer,) and unfortunately for the people, flora and fauna in and around the Gulf of Mexico we ended up on the wrong side of the equation. And if nothing can be truly done to prevent accidents of this scale, is it worth uncorking the genie from the bottle given the amount of destruction it unleashes?

Interesting that this years-old story rears up now, when the SEC is suing Goldman and the administration is pushing financial industry reform.

Sounds like there certainly was (is?) a porn problem at SEC. Convenient that is was such a non-story, until needed.

Propublica is pretty awesome, and their recent piece about Magnetar, and the market crash is a great example of that. http://www.propublica.org/feature/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going And with the recent videos released by wikileaks of the US military mowing down civilians, it seems more and more, it is alternative media which is doing real journalism. Newspapers claim they are loosing money because of internet news and thus can't afford to do investigative reporting. Propublica and wikileaks are the other side of that coin.

If anyone here wants to support journalism in the public interest (not Corporate controlled or all about supporting the status quo) donate to the organization Pro Publica and/or read their stories and forward them to your friends and colleagues.

Pro Publica is "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them." See Pro Publica.

BTW, I just saw on their site a recent award...

[[ProPublica is pleased to be the recipient of the first Edward R. Murrow Award for Media Entrepreneurship from Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication. ProPublica is being recognized for its work as a "nonprofit provider of hard-hitting online journalism," according to Lawrence Pintak, the founding dean of Murrow College, which is named for the legendary CBS News broadcaster and journalist.

And they are a 501c3 tax-deductible organization. Donate to them here.

(for the record, I'm not affiliated with them, I just think they are groovy.)

If anyone here wants to support journalism in the public interest (not Corporate controlled or all about supporting the status quo) donate to the organization Pro Publica and/or read their stories and forward them to your friends and colleagues.

Pro Publica is "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them." See Pro Publica.

BTW, I just saw on their site a recent award...

[[ProPublica is pleased to be the recipient of the first Edward R. Murrow Award for Media Entrepreneurship from Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication. ProPublica is being recognized for its work as a "nonprofit provider of hard-hitting online journalism," according to Lawrence Pintak, the founding dean of Murrow College, which is named for the legendary CBS News broadcaster and journalist.

And they are a 501c3 tax-deductible organization. Donate to them here.

(for the record, I'm not affiliated with them, I just think they are groovy.)

If anyone here wants to support journalism in the public interest (not Corporate controlled or all about supporting the status quo) donate to the organization Pro Publica and/or read their stories and forward them to your friends and colleagues.

Pro Publica is "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them." See Pro Publica.

BTW, I just saw on their site a recent award...

[[ProPublica is pleased to be the recipient of the first Edward R. Murrow Award for Media Entrepreneurship from Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication. ProPublica is being recognized for its work as a "nonprofit provider of hard-hitting online journalism," according to Lawrence Pintak, the founding dean of Murrow College, which is named for the legendary CBS News broadcaster and journalist.

And they are a 501c3 tax-deductible organization. Donate to them here.

(for the record, I'm not affiliated with them, I just think they are groovy.)

If anyone here wants to support journalism in the public interest (not Corporate controlled or all about supporting the status quo) donate to the organization Pro Publica and/or read their stories and forward them to your friends and colleagues.

Pro Publica is "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them." See Pro Publica.

BTW, I just saw on their site a recent award...

[[ProPublica is pleased to be the recipient of the first Edward R. Murrow Award for Media Entrepreneurship from Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication. ProPublica is being recognized for its work as a "nonprofit provider of hard-hitting online journalism," according to Lawrence Pintak, the founding dean of Murrow College, which is named for the legendary CBS News broadcaster and journalist.

And they are a 501c3 tax-deductible organization. Donate to them here.

(for the record, I'm not affiliated with them, I just think they are groovy.)

Er, but what are we going to do with all the people who just don't "have" the brains? They get a free ride?

That seems to be the way it's been working so far.

Goldman had a relatively small piece of TARP. J.P. Morgan and Bank of America and Wells Fargo paid off a lot of their obligations by issuing new equity. Citi reduced theirs the same way (but did not eliminate it).

The big holes aren't really banks; AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and GM:

http://bailout.propublica.org/main/list/index

This site says Citigroup received 50 billion from the Fed. The little bit that was stolen is just a drop in the bucket. Dillenger probably did better percentage-wise in the 1930's with a gun and some balls.

even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question

You mean Fannie Mae, the largest and hardest hit of all the subprime lenders who has about 40% market share and is subsidized by the government?

Here is a citation on the size of Fannie Mae: citation 1
Distribution of Bailout funds, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are second only to AIG: citation 2

So no they aren't just pulling that shit out of thin air. You could also look at government policies for the last 80 years in which the government is trying to get every American to own a home.

Like PayPal, Mastercard and Visa are still just transaction brokers (very lucrative business, by the way), but late last year, American Express became a bank almost overnight. Ever since Congress passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), otherwise known as the Great Bank Bailout of 2008, any institution that wanted a chunk of bailout money had to be a bank (or an insurance company, like AIG, that insured banks and their worthless securities). In November 2008, after the government started handing out billions of federal reserve notes to failing institutions that were "too big to fail," American Express filed all the forms necessary to re-organize itself as a bank, and then recieved $3.4 billion (see http://bailout.propublica.org/entities/15-american-express). Fortunately, they just re-paid the entire loan--with interest--back to the U.S. Treasury Department, but they are now a bank, and will probably continue to be one as long as it benefits them.

Beyond the lack of transparency, we should be wondering about the competence and integrity of the evaluators who awarded this to a company that doesn't know that Section 508 is not part of the ADA (see http://documents.propublica.org/recovery-gov-contract-documents#p=72), but is actually part of Rehabilitation Act (http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12)

They didn't hide the costs for the project. They hid the cost per job type. They probably don't want their employees knowing what the others are getting paid.

But this looks more like they are hiding *companies* involved, not individuals.

In fact I would very much like to know just who is getting paid for this, and how much - so that if I wished I could trace back connections to various senators that insisted certain web development providers were chosen...

If you don't want someone to know how much you are getting paid, even as an individual - don't work on government contracts. It's that simple.

Is it just me or is something about the deliverables on page 97 a little off? "Advanced search" due Aug 10, but the system architecture due after 6 months? Data migration due in 2007?

http://documents.propublica.org/recovery-gov-contract-documents#p=97

You didn't read the linked document, did you?

Here, I'll help you out: http://documents.propublica.org/recovery-gov-contract-documents#p=65

The parts which are blacked out are clearly not 'national security concerns' as you have claimed. They are generally specifications of the program management structure. It almost certainly lays out the people and corporations that are involved, and what their various tasks and responsibilities are.

I don't think that the general public really has a need to know which exact people are working on each team. There are arguably privacy concerns there. But it I don't see why the teams and corporation partnerships themselves have been redacted. In any case, it has little to do with trade secrets, and nothing whatsoever to do with national security.

An example of why licensing matters: ProPublica is another new investigative journalism operation, funded as a nonprofit and dedicated to doing deep investigative journalism at a time when many daily newspapers can no longer afford it. They make their content free (as in beer) to newspapers and online sites.

Sounds great, right? The problem is, their Creative Commons license does not allow for editing of the stories. On a day-to-day basis, that means newspapers and other content users can't localize the piece directly -- they'd have to write a sidebar. What's more troubling is that the license also means local editors can't legally alter the story if they find factual errors or want to add additional facts.

That's why licensing matters. It'll be interesting to see the approach HuffPo takes.

maybe I'm looking in the wrong places :)

Try these:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/

http://www.propublica.org/

it's really in response to propublica.

http://propublica.org/

Which one are you talking about? The 5 day waiting period? Pfft... that's not about transparancy.

According to a wide variety of other commentators it certainly is.

http://www.propublica.org/article/take-two-obama-short-on-transparency-pledge-again-090205

What about his promise that he wouldn't continue Bush's abuse of the state secrets privilege? Because he has ignored that.

I would not exactly say he ignored it. For example in his first day in office he implemented a roll back of an important Bush secrecy directive which was clearly an abuse of exactly what you are talking about, the state secret privilege.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/22/obama-lifts-bushs-veil-of-secrecy/

There has been a roll-back of the Bush position in many cases, however in a few high profile cases he has continued the Bush policy. Speculation is that in some cases he is following the Bush policy because releasing documents would then compel prosecutions of former Bush officials - something he has stated he doesn't want.

Personally I think judgement on this will have to wait a bit for the overall picture to emerge.

One of the Changes was greater transparency. (cough)

What is it with the readers on Slashdot? A couple of weeks in office and Obama has already loosened several regulations and policies pertaining to transparency, including.

1. The Ashcroft directive to automatically deny FOIA applications.
2. Made changes to the Presidential Records Act.
3. Started work on an Open Government Directive.

Also as a Senator Obama has been instrumental in legislation fostering transpaency.

http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-begins-rollback-of-bush-era-secrecy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Funding_Accountability_and_Transparency_Act_of_2006

All you have done is revealed your complete lack of knowledge on the topic.

Maybe you should see a doctor for that cough.

Nobody said the MSM is perfect or even good, only that it's better than the alternative. Sort of like Democracy, which is terrible, but is still the best option.

However, the "MSM" covers a very large number of media sources, all over the world, in every town, and in every format (newspaper, magazine, TV, web, etc.). I've found many of those things you wish for, including in-depth policy analysis and well researched coverage that represents both sides. There is plenty of media that doesn't provide those things (I think because most of the public doesn't demand it), including Hannity, O'Reilly, and Olbermann too. I ignore them and read the quality stuff. Here are a few great MSM resources you might like:
  * ProPublica - Investigative reporting covering the U.S.
  * Council on Foreign Relations - International issues, especially try their Backgrounders, which are very well done.
  * The Economist - Economics and finance, as well as international news and analysis.

I support open source software, I contribute my time and money to many projects and have five FOSS applications open right now, but I think the Ubuntu story was pretty good; imperfect, but reasonable. I don't think Ubuntu is suitable for most end-users, due to the basic compatibility issues she described. I wish it were otherwise, but that doesn't change the news.