The Greedhead Mentality Will Keep Occupy Wall Street Relevant For a Long Time
October 21, 2011 No Comment
enlarge If I had to sum up the general theme of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it would go something like this: “We have to stop pretending that it’s okay to screw people over in the name of making money.” Now before some people start jumping up and down and yelling, “Straw man, straw man! Nobody believes it’s okay to do that,” let me present you with this delightful post written by ex-Goldman employee Matt Levine. Here is the actual title of the piece: So Maybe Citi Created A Mortgage-Backed Security Filled With Loans They Knew Were Going To Fail So That They Could Sell It To A Client Who Wasn’t Aware That They Sabotaged It By Intentionally Picking The Misleadingly Rated Loans Most Likely To Be Defaulted Upon, So What? Yeah, so what? It was just fraud! What kind of loser is opposed to fraud? Levine’s post is largely an attempt to counter arguments that it’s wrong to screw people over in the name of making money. Most of his points rely on the tried and true “sophisticated investor” defense, which is basically akin to that scene in “Animal House” where the guys from Delta House have just destroyed Flounder’s car and Otter tries to console him by saying, “Hey, you f***ed up! You trusted us!” In other words, it’s your fault that you got the shaft since you should have known we were going to shaft you. Take a look: There are five points to which your free-floating rage could maybe attach: 1. You were shorting a thing that you were selling to your customers! This is what drove Congress bonkers. But that’s what selling is. If you have 20 apples and sell me 15, you now have fewer apples, and I have more. If apple prices decline, I am worse off, and you are relatively protected. Banks, which are always long some risks and short some others, don’t see zero as a particularly interesting point on this continuum – if you have 20 apples and sell me 30, and apple prices decline, you make money, but that’s different only in degree, not in kind, from selling me 15 and reducing your risk to 5. The apple analogy is sorta funky since most normal human beings buy apples to, uh, eat them instead of using them as long-term investment strategies. But let’s roll with it! Let’s say Matt sells me a crate of apples that he thinks is overvalued and that I think I can sell at a profit. I understand that there are certain risks in such transactions: The apples might have worms in them. There might be a surplus crop of apples that will diminish my selling power. Or people might just decide apples suck and not want to buy them. These are all risks I’m willing to assume when I buy apples from Matt. But what I’m not willing to assume when I buy apples from Matt is that he might have personally embedded hand grenades in 80% of them that will blow up my truck when I try to drive them off the lot. Because that’s pretty much what Citi’s bad apples did to the people on the other side of the trade: After the deal closed on Feb. 28, 2007, more than 80 percent of the portfolio was downgraded by credit ratings agencies in less than nine months. The security declared “an event of default” on Nov. 19, 2007, and investors soon lost hundreds of millions of dollars, the S.E.C. said, while Citigroup gained. Among the losers was Ambac of New York, which insured financial instruments and was the largest investor in the deal, according to the S.E.C. Ambac’s role in the transaction was to assume the credit risk associated with a $500 million portion of the portfolio. When the value of the portfolio fell, Ambac had to make payments to those who had bet against the bonds, as Citigroup had. In part because of losses tied to the financial crisis, Ambac filed for bankruptcy last year. Neener, neener, neener, Ambac! How do you like them $500 million apples, losers? OK, let’s get back to Levine here: 2. You didn’t tell buyers you were short. Well, see above – someone had to be short, that’s what a synthetic CDO is. So buyers knew. But also, you did. In other words, the SEC has a sad because Citi didn’t specifically tell clients that the other side of the market was Citi prop, rather than customer facilitation, although it did say “it might be.” Fortunately, that will no longer be a problem. Similarly (oppositely?), with Abacus the SEC was pissed that Goldman didn’t tell clients that the other side of the market was John Paulson, who had a stellar reputation for market clairvoyance for about 45 minutes (though those 45 minutes, to be fair, occurred after Abacus was already dead). But of course you’re not supposed to tell people who the other side of the market is. Banks have rules against telling buyers who the sellers were, and vice versa. That’s why you trade through a market maker: to preserve anonymity and avoid being front-run by competitors. Citi disclosed that it might have a conflict by being short; it just didn’t want to give away its whole book by explaining exactly how short it was and whether the risk was laid off elsewhere. What makes this whole passage so spectacularly wrong is that Levine seems to view all of these transactions as mere bets between two well-coiffed gentlemen of superior stock. “Cheerio, old bean, I say! Shall we place our wagers on some synthetic CDOs to-day? I’ll bet twenty pounds that the commoners default on their mortgages and you can bet twenty pounds that they’ll pay them off!” But the problem is that these cute little bets on the housing market had consequences far more dire than some rich a**wipe losing his money. See, Goldman’s credit default swap deals with AIG were the main factor that sent the firm hurtling toward insolvency. You may remember what happened to them — they got bailed out by we taxpayers to the tune of $85 billion . What’s more, instruments such as synthetic CDOs are designed to let investors take out insurance on assets that they don’t even own, which means they can theoretically add limitless leverage to the financial system so long as there are suckers sophisticated investors willing to take on the risks. Now while said suckers sophisticated investors may indeed deserve to lose their shirts, it also kinda sucks for us if those same suckers sophisticated investors are the same douches that, say, insure peoples’ cars. If I get into a car accident and some a**bag greedhead investment bank has bankrupted the insurer of the car that hit me, I’m totally screwed, along with anyone else who needs AIG to pay out claims that are legitimate parts of the real economy and not part of the Grand Derivatives Casino. And that’s the thing that drives me nuts about the greedhead mentality: The denial that their actions could have a widespread negative impact on other peoples’ lives. If Occupy Wall Street does just one thing, it should be to shame this sort of thinking out of existence.
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Suspected ‘mother ship’ believed to have been involved in the hijacking of an Italian cargo ship earlier this month A “pirate mother ship” believed to have been used as a base for attacks on merchant vessels off Somalia has been captured by the Royal Navy. An assault was launched on the wooden dhow vessel after Royal Navy ships tracked it down in the Indian Ocean, the Ministry of Defence said. The boat, which had been hijacked along with its 20-man Pakistani crew, is suspected to have been used as a base for attacks. The MoD said that four men allegedly involved in hijacking an Italian cargo ship, the Monte Cristo, on 11 October, surrendered and a cache of weapons and stolen equipment was recovered. Royal Marines and Navy personnel from HMS Somerset and Royal Fleet Auxiliary Fort Victoria were involved in the operation, the MoD said. The four suspects surrendered and were later handed to Italian authorities on suspicion of involvement in the attack on the Monte Cristo, which was rescued by British, US and Italian forces. Captain Rod Yapp, who commanded the boarding party, said there were indications that more hijackings were being planned. “I think that if we hadn’t disrupted this group of suspected pirates, it is quite possible that they would have attacked another merchant vessel.” Somali pirates have been involved in numerous attacks on shipping off the Horn of Africa over the past decade, often demanding multimillion pound ransoms to free vessels and their crews. Piracy at sea Somalia Africa Barry Neild guardian.co.uk
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Work and pensions secretary says the problem must be tackled when children in problem families have not even been born Britain’s gang, gun and crime culture has to be tackled at the point when children in problem families are still in their mothers’ wombs, Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said on Thursday as he trailed what is likely to be a landmark report on youth violence drawn up after the summer riots. The report, being prepared by Duncan Smith and the home secretary, Theresa May, will combine proposals for better parenting with tough measures to deglamorise gang membership, including increased sentences for specific offences if the perpetrator is a known gang member. Duncan Smith was speaking at briefing given by Karyn McCluskey, joint head of the violence reduction unit of Scotland, set up within Strathclyde police, and Andrew Ward, head of the Merseyside Matrix unit, responsible for fighting gun and gang crime. Both forces have cut gang crime over the past four years by an approach that brings in health visitors, social services, schools and tough law enforcement. On Merseyside the approach has been so tough that car bombs have been put outside police stations in retaliation. The work of the two forces in fighting gangs would form the kernel of the report, Duncan Smith said. Duncan Smith said solutions lay in earlier intervention with identifiable problem families, more male role models in schools, a requirement by politicians to own up that they have a gang problem, and enforcement disrupting the lives of gang leaders. He is also pressing for the Department of Health to co-operate more with other agencies, since health visitors are often among the few state agents who can get through the doors of some of the most troubled families. Duncan Smith said: “I am talking about intervening when the child is conceived, not even when born. The kids we are talking about – half of them are unable to speak, cannot form sentences, they have no sense of empathy, they cannot share toys at school, they watch their mums get beaten up regularly and sexually abused. “It is about knowing which child is at risk and then matching the child to the programmes available that we know work. “The gangs are the epicentre of the problems we face. They are the result of all this social breakdown, and they are also the drivers of it. “Kids will not cross postcode areas for work because they think they might get stabbed. You will get kids carrying knives to school who are not members of gangs, so they see a knife as a safety measure. You get massive levels of violence against women. This is the untold story of gangs – the attacks on women that treat women just as tools for men to use.” Duncan Smith said the solution did not lie in extra state spending but in much better co-operation between agencies. “There is a lot of money being spent on families and estates but it is dysfunctional money that goes to solve only short-term problems.” Calling for tougher sentences for gang membership, Ward said: “We have had a look at the US, where you can double the sentence by proving someone is part of a gang. “I think that is incredibly powerful because the people will not want to wear gang membership as a badge of honour. If we were to say that in interview you said were a member of the Crocky Crew and you have just added another five years to your gun crime offence, that would have a big impact, I tell you.” McCluskey said: “We have to have this uncomfortable conversation and say this is going to take a long time and not change policy and strategy every year, but have some bravery and set course for a long time. This is going to take 10 to 15 years. Government has got a role in saying parenting is the most important job you can do, and some mothers just don’t have skills.” She also called for “swift, visible justice that makes people own up to their behaviour. We show them the intelligence, we visit them at their house, tell them what we know about them. We get the chief in and he says to them: ‘The violence stops as of tonight. It’s over. In the next month when we catch one of you, we are going to take out your whole group, and we are going to make your life really difficult. I have got 9,000 cops and I am so powerful I can have them all outside your front door if you so wish.’” Gangs Communities Young people Iain Duncan Smith Theresa May Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Jon Stewart Rips GOP For ‘Pitting Americans Against Americans’ With ‘Take Our Country Back’ Rhetoric (VIDEO)
October 21, 2011 No Comment
Conservative rhetoric is by no means a new subject on “The Daily Show,” but on Tuesday night’s episode, Jon Stewart began the show with a lengthy segment on just that — and what it means in the wake of Occupy Wall Street. You’d think the GOP’s “Take it to the streets,” “Ready for battle” expressions would coincide with what’s going on in cities across America right now, but the party is primarily opposed to the populist uprising. Specifically, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, whose sentiments on class warfare caught Stewart’s attention most of all. Cantor had previously said that Americans need to “Take this country back” but now, after a month of Occupy Wall Street protests, fears class warfare and is accusing the movement of pitting Americans against Americans. Stewart saw a hole in his logic right away: “If Republicans don’t condone pitting Americans against Americans, well then, who is that we americans should be ‘taking this country back’ from?” Of course, Stewart was ready with a slew of clips to back up his argument, showing just who conservatives think America’s enemies really are. The list goes on and on, including (but not limited to) liberals, federal employees, activist judges, global warming advocates, the entertainment media, “Tenured professors who can flunk you if you’re conservative,” according to Newt Gingrich, and “gay people who are living together.” There are so many that Stewart had to put it all into a Venn diagram, and in the process, might have just figured out who Mitt Romney really is. Watch the full segment above (or click here to watch on “The Daily Show” website) to hear the rest of Stewart’s analysis, including how hard it must be for the GOP to “Love America so much, but hate almost three-quarters of the people in it.”
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Defendant denies there was sexual element to case but says he strangled 25-year-old in panic after she rebuffed his kiss More than 10 months after killing his next door neighbour, Joanna Yeates, Vincent Tabak has given his first full public account of the moment he attacked her. Tabak said he tried to kiss Yeates after she invited him into her flat and made a flirtatious remark. He insisted he had not meant to kill or seriously harm her, adding that he had only wanted to kiss her and was not planning to try to have sex with her. The 33-year-old Dutch engineer denied that he had lifted Yeates’s top or touched her breasts. He also said he had not been spying on her before the attack, which happened on 17 December last year. He apologised for hiding Yeates’s body on a country lane three miles from her flat, where it was found eight days later, on Christmas morning, and said he was sorry for putting Yeates’s parents and her boyfriend, Greg Reardon, through “hell”. Tabak was asked in court to demonstrate how he put an arm around Yeates and how he put his right hand around her neck. Her parents, David and Teresa, sat in the front row, five metres from Tabak, as he did so. They did not appear to look at him once as he gave evidence. Tabak – who admits manslaughter but denies murder – began by answering questions from his barrister, William Clegg QC. He spoke of his childhood and education in Holland, saying he grew up in a small town, went to university and became an expert in the flow of people through buildings and public areas. He said he studied until he was 29, when he came to England and got his first job at a design and engineering company in Bath. He had no girlfriends in Holland but met Tanja Morson online via Guardian Soulmates and they began living together in Clifton, Bristol. Yeates and Reardon moved in next door in October 2010, but Tabak was soon sent to California for work. He said he may only have seen his neighbours once. On the night of the killing, Morson was out at a staff party. Tabak said he had pizza and a beer then decided to go to Asda. “I felt a bit lonely,” he said. “I didn’t want to stay home alone.” As he walked down his path, Tabak said Yeates, a 25-year-old landscape architect, waved and indicated that he should come into her flat. He said he told her he was “a bit lonely and a bit bored” because his girlfriend was away. Yeates said she was also “bored at home” because Reardon was not there. The defendant said they talked about Yeates and Reardon’s cat, which used to find its way into Tabak and Morson’s flat. Tabak said Yeates had told him the cat sometimes went into places “that it shouldn’t go. A bit like me … ” He told his barrister: “I got he impression that she wanted to kiss me. She had been friendly. I leaned forward and I think I put one of my hands on her back and tried to kiss her. She started to scream quite loudly.” Tabak’s voice broke as he described how he “panicked”. He said he put his hand over her mouth, said he was sorry and asked her to stop screaming. He said he took his hand away and she began to scream again. “I put my hand over her mouth and the other hand on her neck,” he said. “I was panicking. I wanted to stop her screams. I wanted to calm her down.” “Did you intend to kill her?” Clegg asked. “No definitely not,” Tabak said. He was then asked: “Did you intend to cause her serious harm?” “No, definitely not,” he replied. Clegg asked how long Tabak had kept his hand around her neck. “For a short, short time, I think less than a minute,” he said. The barrister asked him to “relive” the moment in court, close his eyes and estimate how long he held her for. Tabak held his eyes shut for 15 seconds. Tabak said Yeates “went limp”. “She fell to the floor. I was in a state of panic, shock,” he said. “I still can’t understand what happened.” He claimed the attack took place in the kitchen. He carried Yeates’s body into the bedroom, where he placed it on the bed. He then carried it into his own flat. Tabak said he went back to Yeates’s flat, switched off the oven and television and picked up a pizza that she had bought on the way home that night and one of her socks that had fallen off. He took those items to his flat. He then put the body into a bicycle bag and put it in his car boot before driving to Asda. Asked why he had done so, he said: “I can’t believe I did that. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Tabak drove towards Bristol airport and stopped at Longwood Lane. He said: “I did something horrendous. I decided to leave her body there.” He said he tried to heave the body over a wall but could not, so he covered it with leaves. Clegg asked him about Yeates’s clothing being “rucked up”, exposing part of one breast. Tabak said it must have happened when he moved the body. He said traces of his DNA found on the outside of Yeates’s jeans and on her breast area must also be the result of him moving the body. He removed his spectacles and seemed to wipe away a tear when he apologised for dumping the body, saying: “I’m so sorry for doing that. I know I put Joanna’s parents and Greg though hell for a week. I still can’t believe I did it.” Tabak said he returned to his flat after dumping Yeates’s body. He collected the bicycle bag, pizza and sock and dumped them at a recycling centre. Later, he went and picked his girlfriend up and tried to carry on with life as normal. He said he expected the police to come for him at any moment. He began to drink and take sleeping pills. He told the court that before he was arrested on 20 January, he considered killing himself by jumping off Clifton suspension bridge. Even after his arrest, he admitted he lied to police, saying he “stupidly” hoped they would not find the evidence to convict him. Clegg concluded by again asking Tabak if he had meant to kill Yeates or cause her serious harm. “Definitely not,” he said. Nigel Lickley QC, for the prosecution, began by asking Tabak if he was “calculating, dishonest and manipulative”. Tabak accepted that he had been after killing Yeates. Lickley put it to him that if he was like that after the event, he was probably like it before, but Tabak disagreed. Lickley accused him of being “calculating, dishonest and manipulative” in the witness box. The defendant insisted he was not. The prosecutor suggested there was a “sexual element” to the case. Tabak had said he wanted to kiss Yeates. “Were you thinking of having sex with Joanna?” Lickley asked. “No,” Tabak replied. Lickley asked if Tabak was attracted to Yeates. He accepted he liked her face and may have been attracted by her hair and clothes. The prosecutor asked Tabak to demonstrate how Yeates had “waved” to him as he left for Asda. Tabak did so. He said he could not remember the gesture she had used to “beckon” him in. Tabak repeated that he believed she had flirted with him in the flat. Lickley then asked him to demonstrate how he had put his hand on Yeates’s back. Tabak did so. The prosecutor asked Tabak how and why he had put his hands on Yeates’s mouth and neck. He repeatedly asked him how Yeates had reacted. Tabak repeatedly replied: “I can’t remember.” He said he could not remember whether she was frightened, adding that she was “definitely not struggling”. Lickley asked Tabak to demonstrate how he had put his hand around Yeates’s neck. He did so using his right hand. The prosecutor then asked Tabak if he had pulled her top up. “No,” Tabak replied. Tabak was then asked whether he had touched her breasts, and whether that was what made her scream. “No, definitely not,” Tabak said. He asked Tabak twice whether he had eaten Yeates’s pizza. Tabak denied that he had. Lickley said: “All you had to do, Vincent Tabak, was walk out of the house. Correct?” Tabak said: “Yes, but I didn’t”. The trial continues. Joanna Yeates Crime Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Washington Post exposes Marco Rubio’s faulty family story: Marco Rubio’s compelling family story embellishes facts, documents show During his rise to political prominence, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) frequently repeated a compelling version of his family’s history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the son of exiles, he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after “a thug,” Fidel Castro, took power. But a review of documents — including naturalization papers and other official records — reveals that Rubio’s dramatic account of his family saga embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than 21 / 2 years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959. It looks like Rubio embellished his family’s plight for political gain. In 2006, on the eve of his ascendancy to speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio told an audience that “in January of 1959 a thug named Fidel Castro took power in Cuba and countless Cubans were forced to flee and come here, many – most – here to America. When they arrived they were welcomed by the most compassionate people on all the Earth.” Wearing a red flower in his lapel, his voice sometimes emotional, he praised those who fled, calling them “a great generation.” But he also assured them: “Today your children and grandchildren are the secretary of commerce of the United States and multiple members of Congress, they are the CEO of Fortune 500 companies and successful entrepreneurs, they are Grammy winning artists and they are renowned journalists, they are a United States senator and soon, even speaker of the Florida House.” The speech drew heavy coverage in Florida, for it was a momentous event. Rubio was the first Cuban American to become speaker of the House in the Florida Legislature… read on And now it looks like Orly Taitz’ group of fanatics are doing us some good for a change. Miami Herald: Unable to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president, rigid followers of the Constitution have turned their attention to another young, charismatic politician many think could one day occupy the White House. The birthers are focusing on U.S. Sen Marco Rubio, the budding Republican star from Florida. “It’s nothing to do with him personally. But you can’t change the rules because you like a certain person. Then you have no rules,” said New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo. Forget about the alleged Photoshopped birth certificates; the activists are not challenging whether Rubio was born in Miami. Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution which says “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The rub is that “natural born citizen” was never defined. The birthers rely on writings at the time of the formation of the republic and references in court cases since then to contend that “natural born” means a person born to U.S. citizens. Rubio was born in 1971 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, his office said, but his parents did not become citizens until 1975. “Marco Rubio was born a Cuban citizen via his parents,” screams a headline on a blog by birther Charles Kerchner, who obtained copies of the naturalization petitions by Rubio’s parents in May, igniting talk that is spreading across the Web. I can’t lie and say that I’m not enjoying this, but isn’t he covered under the 14th amendment? At least these people are staying consistent with their weirdness. Rubio, who said that Social Security/Medicare Make Us Lazy has been a tea party hero. Rush Limbaugh anointed Rubio as the next big deal in the GOP so I wonder if he’ll step in and target one of his big constituencies, the Birthers. Who knew that WND would serve a useful purpose after all. But there is sufficient muddiness to fuel the birthers, many of whom are still angry with the Republican establishment for not taking their case against Obama more seriously. Rubio was among them, saying he did not think it was an issue. “The other shoe has dropped,” conservative figure Alan Keyes said on a radio program last month. “Now you’ve got Republicans talking about Marco Rubio for president when it’s obviously clear that he does not qualify. Regardless of party label, they don’t care about Constitution. It’s all just empty, lying lip service.” Kerchner said he decided to check out Rubio after hearing so much buzz about him as a vice presidential candidate. He said he contacted Rubio’s office to inquiry about his citizenship status at birth and was given the brush off. So Kerchner got in touch with the National Archives in Atlanta, which had the naturalization petitions for Rubio’s father Mario and mother Oriales. The documents, independently obtained by the St. Petersburg Times on Wednesday, show they sought and were given citizenship in 1975. “Senator Rubio should stand up for the Constitution and speak out about this and say that as much as he’d like to run someday for those offices, he is not constitutionally eligible to run for president or VP,” Kerchner wrote on his blog. A piece followed in World Net Daily, a repository of right-wing thought. Kerchner said the records revealed another truth: Rubio’s parents came to the U.S. in 1956 — three years before Fidel Castro took over. He accuses Rubio of embellishing his narrative as the son of Cuban exiles, a powerful tale he has used in his rapid climb in politics. And they’re also calling him a liar about his family’s history.
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Rome is counting the cost of its worst violence in years, which erupted on a day of global protests over austerity and banking practices. Hundreds of hooded protesters in Italy’s capital torched cars, smashed bank windows and attacked a church. Saturday’s…
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Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. When police fired tear gas canisters and water cannons at Italian “Occupy Wall Street” protesters, it evoked another violent and deadly demonstration against Wall Street. Evidently, a peaceful demonstration in Rome against corporate greed and in solidarity with the New York Occupy Wall Street Movement turned violent as some protesters started to smash windows belonging to multinational storefronts. Others threw rocks and incendiary devices at financial buildings in response to severe austerity measures. Back in 1920, an Italian-American immigrant and an anarchist named Mario Buda parked a horse-drawn wagon near Wall Street and the House of…
Continue reading …Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. When police fired tear gas canisters and water cannons at Italian “Occupy Wall Street” protesters, it evoked another violent and deadly demonstration against Wall Street. Evidently, a peaceful demonstration in Rome against corporate greed and in solidarity with the New York Occupy Wall Street Movement turned violent as some protesters started to smash windows belonging to multinational storefronts. Others threw rocks and incendiary devices at financial buildings in response to severe austerity measures. Back in 1920, an Italian-American immigrant and an anarchist named Mario Buda parked a horse-drawn wagon near Wall Street and the House of…
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Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. When police fired tear gas canisters and water cannons at Italian “Occupy Wall Street” protesters, it evoked another violent and deadly demonstration against Wall Street. Evidently, a peaceful demonstration in Rome against corporate greed and in solidarity with the New York Occupy Wall Street Movement turned violent as some protesters started to smash windows belonging to multinational storefronts. Others threw rocks and incendiary devices at financial buildings in response to severe austerity measures. Back in 1920, an Italian-American immigrant and an anarchist named Mario Buda parked a horse-drawn wagon near Wall Street and the House of…
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