Tag: United States

If a Highway Robber Has to Go to Jail, Why Does the Elite on Wall Street Get to Stay Home?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics
Phil Angelides

Will Wall Street Ever Face Justice? – NYTimes.com

Four years after the disintegration of the financial system, Americans have, rightfully, a gnawing feeling that justice has not been served. Claims of financial fraud against companies like Citigroup and Bank of America have been settled for pennies on the dollar, with no admission of wrongdoing. Executives who ran companies that made, packaged and sold trillions of dollars in toxic mortgages and mortgage-backed securities remain largely unscathed.

Meager resources have been applied to investigate the financial assault on our country, which wiped away trillions of dollars in household wealth and has resulted in 24 million people jobless or underemployed. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which Congress created to examine the full scope of the crisis, was given a budget of $9.8 million — roughly one-seventh of the budget of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations did its work on the financial crisis with only a dozen or so Congressional staff members.

Will Wall Street Ever Face Justice? – NYTimes.com

Phil Angelides, the author of the above column, shares an identical opinion to mine. Justice has not been served.

I wrote extensively about the mortgage crisis back when business writers considered it a matter of a few small mistakes in the paperwork that weren’t worth getting upset over. I watched day by day as we learned about robo-signing, error laden foreclosures sometimes on homes that the client owned outright, and the use of a federal government program called HAMP to push people out of their homes and force them to pay outrageous penalties. The federal government did not even keep records of what HAMP was doing for the first six months and the fact that it was run by a twenty year bank veteran did not surprise. There wasn’t any fox in the hen-house, there was a rabid lion operating with permission to prey at will.

Millions of Americans suffered. Barely treading water, troubled by lost jobs, debts and predatory banks, the hard-working people of America were thrown an anvil by a federal government laden with former bankers in every conceivable position. It’s a sad story and reflects badly on the President of the United States who promised us better.

I was not surprised when the claims of homeowners and criminal prosecution of these mortgages companies were settled for a pittance. It would have been one of the saddest days of my life if in the months leading up to the settlement I had not experienced over and over again a federal government immune to the calls of justice and accountability. The settlement was just another nail in the coffin of fairness, a level playing field of law for the middle class and those who would prey upon them.

It remains to be seen whether or not a White House now deserted by its Wall Street Financial Backers will pursue a tougher attitude toward enforcement of the law.

James Pilant

Phil Angelides talk about the real cause of the financial shortcomings in state budgets

(Banksters are to blame NOT TEACHERS)

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Wall Street Suffers “Hard Times”

On By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility

A few weeks ago there was a controversy over grants given to Planned Parenthood by the Susan Komen foundation. The vice president confronted by complaints that poor women would lose their access to health care responded dramatically –

Karen Handel, a former GOP candidate who ran on a pro-life platform, shows her true colors. She just happens to be Susan G. Komen’s Vice President of Public Policy now. “Just like a pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river”

Disdain for poor women and their need for medical currently fashionable among some groups of Americans. There is a suspicion in some quarters that the top 1% find paying for social services an welcome burden.

Now, of course this behavior is contrary to the Greek concept of virtue ethics, modern Protestant business ethics and Catholic social doctrine. However a proportion of the the 1% are getting their comeuppance. It is a small comeuppance but nevertheless, any comeuppance is better than none.

Please read this excerpt –

Wall Street’s Average Cash Bonus Expected To Fall To $121,000

Wall Street cash bonuses for 2011 are expected to drop 14 percent and profits are expected to drop by half for the second year in a row, according to a forecast Wednesday by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

That would result in cash bonuses of $19.7 billion. Profits are expected to be less than $13.5 billion in 2011, compared to $27.6 billion in 2010.

The average cash bonus is expected to be $121,150 for 2011, down from $138,940 in 2010. Bonuses peaked before the recession in 2006 at $191,360.

Wall Street’s Average Cash Bonus Expected To Fall To $121,000

You read it right. Wall Street bonuses will only be $13.5 billion dollars. It’s a trifle, a small amount of money. Of course, it would pay for all the college tuition in the United States for the next year and still have a couple of billion walking around money left. But like I said that’s just a smidgeon on Wall Street.

You probably noticed that the average payout on Wall Street will be $121,000.

Let’s see what is said about this –

The average cash bonus is expected to be $121,150 for 2011, down from $138,940 in 2010. Bonuses peaked before the recession in 2006 at $191,360.

DiNapoli said the forecast for this bonus season shows continued hard times on Wall Street two years after the recession officially ended. The securities industry lost 28,000 jobs, including 9,600 that had been briefly recovered before the slide began in April.

“Continued hard times!” Wow! $121,150 is almost three times the average salary in the United Stand and these people also draw a regular salary. Average salary at Goldman Sachs is $367,057. But we know they’re suffering. 

Well to quote the former vice president of the Susan Komen Foundation, “Cry me a freakin river!”

James Pilant

Here is my take on the 1% with a little help from Garfunkel and Oates.

Save the Rich

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Four Impossible Budget Plans, Four Candidates

On By southwerkIn Politics

Four Fiscal Phonies – NYTimes.com

Of course, Mr. Romney isn’t alone in his hypocrisy. In fact, all four significant Republican presidential candidates still standing are fiscal phonies. They issue apocalyptic warnings about the dangers of government debt and, in the name of deficit reduction, demand savage cuts in programs that protect the middle class and the poor. But then they propose squandering all the money thereby saved — and much, much more — on tax cuts for the rich.

And nobody should be surprised. It has been obvious all along, to anyone paying attention, that the politicians shouting loudest about deficits are actually using deficit hysteria as a cover story for their real agenda, which is top-down class warfare. To put it in Romneyesque terms, it’s all about finding an excuse to slash programs that help people who like to watch Nascar events, even while lavishing tax cuts on people who like to own Nascar teams.

Four Fiscal Phonies – NYTimes.com

I never know whether I should write leading into the article quote or comment down here after it. I guess I’ll just hit or miss until I figure something out.

Well, the meat of the matter is that we have four president candidates for one party. Everyone of them is worried sick about the deficit and believes it will destroy the nation and do it quick. (I can provide you with quotes running down the page in an almost infinite pattern.) Everyone of them has a budget plan. And everyone of these budget plans would make the deficit worse. All of them insanely propose dropping taxes on the 1/10 of 1/% who have done so much to make the United States the envy of every ruthless malefactor of great wealth on the globe.

So, let me get this, the deficit is a serious problem but not serious enough to raise taxes, in fact, it’s not bad enough to make cutting taxes a problem.

Our political speech seems to have arrived at a high level of incoherence.

We’ve got to do better than this. We have to have people with some grasp of facts or, just at least, be able to count.

James Pilant

I’m adding a little note here defending Social Security from the deficit hawks who also want to cut taxes. JP

Social Security Didn’t Create the Deficit

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Are Women Who Choose to Use Birth Control – Sluts? and are All of Us – Pimps??

On By southwerkIn Opinion1 Comment

Well, that is what Rush Limbaugh believes. He said it on his program which we are told reaching fifteen million viewers, who apparently approve of this kind of thing. Mr. Limbaugh’s quote is just below the article title.

Bob Cesca: The He-Man Woman Haters Club

“What does it say about the college coed Susan [sic] Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.”

Bob Cesca: The He-Man Woman Haters Club

It’s hard to talk about this. It’s the kind of talk you expect from a semi-drunk old geezer who has been telling dirty jokes to his buddies and emboldened by alcoholic wisdom decides to hold forth on social issues. That’s hard to reply to.

A gentleman would never say such a thing. A man of honor would immediately apologize. A learned man, a scholar would find such a statement incomprehensible.

This is political discourse in the year 2012. If you say that the tax code is biased in favor of the richest Americans, you are advocating class warfare similar to the French Revolution and will eventually pull the guillotine out of retirement. If you are a Methodist, or a Lutheran or any of the other mainline churches (like me), according to one presidential candidate, you do not practice Christianity, you are not Christians and you are in league with satan himself. If you consider yourself a member of a shrinking middle class, don’t worry you don’t really exist.

That fifteen million Americans find Rush Limbaugh a guide for their behavior and a pattern for their judgment is a failure of dialogue, of citizenship and simple human decency.

We can do better.

James Pilant

Here’s a little bit more of Limbaugh. I’d skip it if I was you. It’s painful.

Bob Cesca: The He-Man Woman Haters Club

Click on the link below to see the video.

Rush Limbaugh says Obama is a Nazi.

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Is Texting Dangerous to Your Divorce?

On By southwerkIn Opinion

It’s apparent from recent studies that texting and facebook entries are figuring in legal disputes particularly divorces. If you are having troubles in your relationship, and you use this kind of media to blow off steam, you might want to reconsider that choice. What you find funny may not be that amusing in open court. What you thought as a private communication can be publicized for all to see.

James Pilant

Ken Altshuler: Getting Divorced? Stop Texting and Get Off Facebook

Our most recent survey released this month shows an overwhelming 92 percent of respondents saying that they have seen an increase in the number of cases using evidence taken from iPhones, Droids, and other smart phones during the past three years. In addition, an even larger number of 94 percent have cited an overall rise in the use of text messages as evidence during the same time period.

So what do matrimonial lawyers know that many others are just beginning to recognize? Basically, having evidence in writing is always the most effective proof in demonstrating that someone is being dishonest, contradictory, and lacks credibility. Credibility is the coin of the realm in the world of family law. Once you can effectively question someone’s credibility with their own written statements, then everything else can be doubted about them.

This is why I also strongly caution my clients that any time you put something in writing, automatically assume that a judge will eventually read it. If it’s something that you don’t want a judge to read, then by all means don’t write it. Words are power; they can be used for good or for evil. Think and be careful before you write anything, because it can go beyond the intended audiences and undermine you in ways you never even imagined.

Ken Altshuler: Getting Divorced? Stop Texting and Get Off Facebook

Girl falls texting on live news

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What’s a Little Corn Syrup Between Friends?

On By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility

When I developed high blood pressure, I had to start eating healthy. It was a shock to find out how much it cost to eat healthy. The food in the supermarket was laden with high fructose corn syrup or salt. Once I had eliminated food that wasn’t good for me, there were a lot fewer choices and with a few exceptions (frozen vegetables), they cost more. One of the most important things I did was to drop soda pop from my diet. That helped a lot with my weight.

It seems to me that the way food is made and marketed in the United States is inimical to having a healthy diet. That a few large companies control food distribution in the nation does not surprise me.

There is something bizarre in the fact that costs more to eat healthy than badly.

James Pilant

Willie Nelson: Why We Must Occupy Our Food Supply

What does this matter for those of us who eat? Corporate control of our food system has led to the loss of millions of family farmers, the destruction of soil fertility, the pollution of our water, and health epidemics including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and even certain forms of cancer. More and more, the choices that determine the food on our shelves are made by corporations concerned less with protecting our health, our environment, or our jobs than with profit margins and executive bonuses.

This consolidation also fuels the influence of concentrated economic power in politics: Last year alone, the biggest food companies spent tens of millions lobbying on Capitol Hill with more than $37 million used in the fight against junk food marketing guidelines for kids.

Willie Nelson: Why We Must Occupy Our Food Supply

High Fructose Corn Syrup & Obesity

King Corn

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Another White House Sell Out on the Big Banks

On By southwerkIn White Collar Crime

Shouldn’t bankers be held to the same laws the rest of Americans have to obey? This is a no-brainer except in the Washington beltway where banks are considered the basis of the Republic rather than the modern equivalent of train robbing Western desperados. I don’t understand. Why is no one being prosecuted? I once lied to a judge. I didn’t know it was a lie until later. When I found out, I called him up (I was working for the state and dealt with the judge regularly) and explained and apologized. He reminded me that I could have gone to jail for that. I told I was well aware of it. And yet here, banks who lied to the judge, to the courts of the United States, are simply walking away. Unlike me, they knew they weren’t telling truth and unlike me, they were making enormous sums of money by lying, and they are not apologizing. Do you see anywhere in the agreement that they have to say, “I’m sorry.” I don’t see it.

There is a dual system of justice in this country, one for me and you, and one for the 1%. It’s very sad. We have been told that we live in a nation of laws, not of men. But the fact is we live in a nation of men, where one class is better than another in the eyes of the law.

James Pilant

Robo-Signing Bank Settlement is a Criminal Sell Out | Better Markets

“Let me help a few victims I created by ripping them off and illegally throwing them out of their homes by false court filings that I swore were true.”  That’s what the so-called mortgage settlement talks are really all about:  fraud, perjury and crimes.  That’s what these banks did and that’s what they are trying to buy their way out of.

The settlement discussions are the same: eliminate all or almost all liability for the bank and, most importantly, all bank officers and employees in exchange for a loan forgiveness or modification program.  Think about this:  the banks engaged in a years-long pattern and practice of what can only be described as fraudulent if not criminal conduct that would put anyone else in prison for years if not decades, yet banks get to buy off the cops with some money to help the victims they created.

Robo-Signing Bank Settlement is a Criminal Sell Out | Better Markets

Mortgage Settlement Is Great – For Big Banks

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Banker Really Sticks it to the 99%!

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

I’ve read from time to time about the sense of entitlement of the 1%. They feel they deserve their money. Now, they often make it with public money speculating against the interests of their fellow citizens, but they would argue that if we would get off our lazy butts, we too could manipulate Congress and parley our influence into millions of dollars. I think I will continue to work my two jobs and not use the government to become rich. I think that makes me stupid by the standards of Wall Street and the “very serious” people who deal out the loathsome pap we get for news and commentary.

Well, here is entitlement, hard core nastiness delivered with the joy of a gangbanger stabbing you for two bucks in a back alley.

James Pilant

BY THE WAY: The banker is unable to use percentages correctly! Apparently the skill set for banking doesn’t include mathematics.

Banker Leaves 1% Tip On $133 Lunch Bill In Defiance of ‘The 99%’ [UPDATED]

Courtesy of futureexbanker.wordpress

A banker left a 1% tip in defiance of ‘the 99%’ at a Newport Beach restaurant the other week, according to his dining companion and underling who snapped a photo of the receipt and posted it to his blog, Future Ex Banker. (Update: the blog is now offline.)

Banker Leaves 1% Tip On $133 Lunch Bill In Defiance of ‘The 99%’ [UPDATED]

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Is Stepping on Teachers Becoming a National Pastime?

On By southwerkIn Politics

Arizona Bill Would Restrict Teachers’ Speech – Proposed legislation would punish those who violate FCC standards

Arizona doesn’t want its teachers cussing in class—and new proposed legislation would actually make it illegal to do so. GOP state lawmakers are behind Senate Bill 1467, which would require public school teachers to adhere to the FCC’s TV and radio standards. That means certain limits on obscene, indecent, or profane language, the Arizona Republic reports. One teacher notes that the bill applies to teachers’ language not just in the classroom, but even if they are with a colleague.

Arizona Bill Would Restrict Teachers’ Speech – Proposed legislation would punish those who violate FCC standards

About one hundred years ago there were three groups of professionals, the opinion makers, in small towns all over the United States. They were  lawyers, doctors and teachers. Doctors and lawyers have retained their status. Teachers are barely one step above a sixteen year old with a MacJob. How did this come about?

There are a lot of reasons. I suspect the increasing demonization of teachers as the destroyers of educational excellence is a key factor. The strange idea that motivated teachers can overcome massive income inequality to produce high test scores in all populations. The teachers’ inability to produce this utopia of educational success results in constant attacks and ridicule. It takes its toll after a while. Further, teachers are divided in their political loyalties making their backing in a political campaign of questionable value. I estimate teachers’ union endorsement to be worth no more than sixty percent of their votes. Teacher fragmentation has been devastating to their political influence for decades. I remember listening in class to my teachers attacking unions and evolution. I grew up in Oklahoma. Defying teacher unions and refusing to even ask for an endorsement became standard politics long ago.

I don’t get it. Teachers by education and position ought to be opinion leaders but have apparently given up the job to do some version of independent politics on an every man for himself basis. Benjamin Franklin once told his fellow revolutionaries, “We must all hang together or else we shall hang separately.” The teacher unions are dying fragmented and ineffective.

Unless this fragmentation ends, there is only one end to the story, the minimum wage.

James Pilant

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Bill Moyers Fights the Good Fight

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

Here is a selection of the words of Bill Moyers. The first is from Salon and is in print today, February 14th, Valentine’s day. The next three are closing remarks from episodes of Bill Moyers’ Journal. You might say that this is a valentine to Bill. May he live a hundred years and continue to inspire us every day of that time.

James Pilant

America’s billionaire-run democracy – 2012 Elections – Salon.com

We are drowning here, with gaping holes torn into the hull of the ship of state from charges detonated by the owners and manipulators of capital. Their wealth has become a demonic force in politics. Nothing can stop them. Not the law, which has been written to accommodate them. Not scrutiny — they have no shame. Not a decent respect for the welfare of others — the people without means, their safety net shredded, left helpless before events beyond their control.

The obstacles facing the millennial generation didn’t just happen. Take an economy skewed to the top, low wages and missing jobs, predatory interest rates on college loans: these are politically engineered consequences of government of, by and for the 1 percent. So, too, is our tax code the product of money and politics, influence and favoritism, lobbyists and the laws they draft for rented politicians to enact.

America’s billionaire-run democracy – 2012 Elections – Salon.com

Plutocracy and Democracy Do Not Mix

Bill Moyers on Greed

Bill Moyers on the American Dream

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