The tainted from the Clinton Era Justice Department A.G. spoke rather lamely and ineptly the other day in one of those forced attendance for government worker's Black History Month Lectures. "Cowards" - the word - was a poor, extremely inept and definitive place marker on his "experience" and his inability to lead and or deal with civil rights in this country. He is already blaming us for his future failures! His Stats!
I sat through one of these awkward lectures in Tucson about fifteen years ago. Of course the speaker was an African American female working in government. What was wrong with the picture then and in that particular HUD/FHA satellite office was that no African-Americans were working there.
I found out rather in a weird way that HUD/FHA, being the weird PR organ of Big Mortgage Companies that is was/still is, that the regional headquarters in San Fran had listed me as African American on its stat sheet to Washington, to balance in a PC fashion the race, ethnic stats going to DC. At the time I thought that if HUD/FHA spent as much time wasted on this stat bullshit, and dealt with real issues, that maybe HUD/FHA could make a difference in the American scene. It is just another government dinosaur sucking the life out of the planet and especially after it helped so generously and ineptly in the mortgage ponzi scam of the recent past.
Mr. Holder's remarks about people afraid to talk about race should start at home. I remember years ago a quote of the film director Spike Lee that he could not make a movie about slavery in US history because African-Americans did not want to touch upon the subject. I am glad to join in any reasonable discussions.
Don't talk about using a big stick to resurrect the Civil Rights division after it had been the Bush-raped in the last admin. Be a big stick. Lead by example and charge up the hill holding the battle banner. A theoretical Casper Milquetoast academic paper read in boring lecture does Jack Shit for me and or the nation in its present difficulties.
Mr. Holder's poor performance of Othello does not mean that he cannot become a great actor one day. My gripe is that why does he have to learn on a learning curve on own time and our dime. How many decades will it take to restore the integrity of the U.S. Justice Department while he understudies the role via mail order acting and or mail order Attorney General correspondence courses??? Is he the best of the best Obama promised? NO!!!
Obama may be African American but he has no roots in slavery unless his mother's family has some black blood in them. I have black blood in me, maybe 1/32nd or 1/64th. Big deal. My immigrant from Ireland great grandfather fought at Gettysburg to help free the slaves. Big deal.
Good luck discussing race while the economy collapses Mr. star understudy Holder! Don’t leave me any free tickets at the box office for your future performance.
Showing posts with label Ponzi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ponzi. Show all posts
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Price of tin gods ( Discounted! )
John Thain in his excuse for giving out bonuses to Merrill Lynch hacks in the middle of a corporate meltdown was that top talent would march to other companies. Sure. Go ahead. Tired, broken, worn-out Reaganesque style obsolete American corporate talent - walk - look for comparable employment - welcome to the real world!!! (It’s a bitch!)
President Obama in an attempt to restore reality ( sanity would be too much to ask even from him ) to the corporate boardrooms in America, set a maximum salary cap for senior executives in failed corporations. If your bankrupt hack company wants a government handout - guess what - the talent that caused the meltdown is not worth millions a year in salary - just thousands. What a refreshing breeze has whofted over the land of America suddenly.
As for talent, a few MBAs got decent salaries for their slide rule approach to ransacking corporations and putting it all neatly onto a spreadsheet to act as ponzi cover to quarterly reports and paper profits, bonuses, corporate jets, Caribbean weekends, drugs and hookers!
The quarterly report scam thing has been going on for over a quarter of a century. Can’t we just keep up appearances for a few more quarters? “Hell I even had money with Madoff!” goes the line of many sad songs on the corporate penthouse world built not on factories but more like Blow.
I have a pint of air. I invest in that pint of air and declare that it has increased in value to half a quart. I declare a dividend. Borrow money from giant useless banks to pay the dividend and I am in business. Bring on the last few remaining state and municipal pension funds to invest in my air corporation. Not many suckers left to fleece in America or globally.
Oh the Pubs fucked up real bad when they couldn’t get the Average American Joe to break off from Social Security and invest his government nest egg in Wall Street.
Bush dropped the ball on that one. The American people will sort of go along with national security and wars in the middle east but don’t touch my privates - my Social Security thingy.
It is still a mess in America with many more quarters before real corporations declare real profits and start hiring native born Americans back at a living wage. But one thing for sure is that the Tin Gods of Wall Street just got a deflationary wake up call as to their Titanic views of themselves and their supposed talents.
It is a new day dawning in corporate America. I can smell the coffee above the pollution free future of electric cars on the newly built highways, solar power on my roof and a realization that reality starts with real things and not theoretical corporate spreadsheet profits, Keating, Lay and Madoff style.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Who Runs the U.S. Government?
(Who is running the U.S. Government? - is this a state secret?)
Bush, a supposed conservative, expanded Washington bureaucracy with ease and no discomfort. Agencies like HUD/FHA, SEC, Commerce, Justice are just decorative buildings. Abilities of many life long bureaucrats are an optional thing. Both Bushes are prime examples of that.
Obama’s recycling of Clinton Era wonders means that nobody to going to clean up the financial, regulatory and Social Security mess for the next four to eight years. It is too big a mess for any politician to want to handle.
I have worked for the government. Who runs it? The Real government I mean. The one that makes decisions and ultimately hopefully protects us from them whoever they currently are. The Real one that probably keeps micro-managed tabs on the worldwide distribution of bomb grade plutonium. The Real one that keeps the list of foibles and bribes of any and every public official on the planet.
Hey we have computers. The capacity to do what I am saying is there. Why do we need millions of pencil pushers in DC? It (the chicken) wanted to cross the road. Not a good answer but the best punch line of all times and it surely fit’s the joke of Washington DC.
They want to put a pencil pusher at the CIA-Leon Panetta. Add CIA to the totally obsolete, useless Government agencies behind HUD/FHA, SEC, Commerce, Justice and on and on and on.
The theory is that these recycled hacks have experience to maneuver through Washington bureaucracies. Yeah right. These are just no show jobs. A place to hang out until tee-off time. Washington can’t do jack shit anymore about anything except war and that on a very costly basis.
Washington is the problem; not the solution.
Who runs the U.S. government? And don’t tell me the government is being run out of store front in the some desert retirement community somewhere. Or is it???
And don’t tell me that The Social Security Trust Fund has been invested with Madeoff and Sons. That is far too believable. If Congress had let SS go Wall Street, how big would the Madoff ponzi scheme be right now? Three hundred billion dollars? Four hundred billion dollars?
I can be stupid and naïve at times but I don’t think I am as dumb as the phony fronts or do-nothings, nothing expected of you-s now currently being paraded through Congress and the media masquerading as the incoming “real government“.
I hope Obama'a new kitchen cabinet knows how to cook!
Bush, a supposed conservative, expanded Washington bureaucracy with ease and no discomfort. Agencies like HUD/FHA, SEC, Commerce, Justice are just decorative buildings. Abilities of many life long bureaucrats are an optional thing. Both Bushes are prime examples of that.
Obama’s recycling of Clinton Era wonders means that nobody to going to clean up the financial, regulatory and Social Security mess for the next four to eight years. It is too big a mess for any politician to want to handle.
I have worked for the government. Who runs it? The Real government I mean. The one that makes decisions and ultimately hopefully protects us from them whoever they currently are. The Real one that probably keeps micro-managed tabs on the worldwide distribution of bomb grade plutonium. The Real one that keeps the list of foibles and bribes of any and every public official on the planet.
Hey we have computers. The capacity to do what I am saying is there. Why do we need millions of pencil pushers in DC? It (the chicken) wanted to cross the road. Not a good answer but the best punch line of all times and it surely fit’s the joke of Washington DC.
They want to put a pencil pusher at the CIA-Leon Panetta. Add CIA to the totally obsolete, useless Government agencies behind HUD/FHA, SEC, Commerce, Justice and on and on and on.
The theory is that these recycled hacks have experience to maneuver through Washington bureaucracies. Yeah right. These are just no show jobs. A place to hang out until tee-off time. Washington can’t do jack shit anymore about anything except war and that on a very costly basis.
Washington is the problem; not the solution.
Who runs the U.S. government? And don’t tell me the government is being run out of store front in the some desert retirement community somewhere. Or is it???
And don’t tell me that The Social Security Trust Fund has been invested with Madeoff and Sons. That is far too believable. If Congress had let SS go Wall Street, how big would the Madoff ponzi scheme be right now? Three hundred billion dollars? Four hundred billion dollars?
I can be stupid and naïve at times but I don’t think I am as dumb as the phony fronts or do-nothings, nothing expected of you-s now currently being paraded through Congress and the media masquerading as the incoming “real government“.
I hope Obama'a new kitchen cabinet knows how to cook!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Hedge Fund Blowout on Wall Street
Who can you trust anymore?
There is this Hedge Fund Blowout on Wall Street. A thought to be very trusted guy with a lot of credentials, track record and street experience has been accused of running a Ponzi scam with a projected loss of $50 billion dollars to investors.
The investors appear to be very rich and famous people as well as charitable trusts. Also Banco Santander of Spain appears as of this writing to have a $3 billion exposure and probable loss in this matter.
I wrote something in March entitled Big Bank, as an Ezine Article.
---To a simple person such as myself, big words like derivatives, kind of go over my head. I am reminded of a former bank that I worked for. For the sack of political politeness, let us call this defunct Wall Street dinosaur Big Bank. This is going back over twenty years.
Big Bank started to sell new fangled derivatives to their best customers until their best customers got burned. I remember news through the grapevine said that the CEO told his traders and brokers to go out and find some more big customers to replace the ones they just lost with this new Chinese checker style financing. Guess what. Word was out on the street. Nobody wanted to do strange business with Big Bank anymore.
Big Bank no longer exists. It got sold to a foreign bank that knew how to treat its customers.
What I am seeing on Wall Street these recent days is two things.
One, pyramid or ponzi schemes all eventually fail. You run out of suckers who trust the sell and end up with a terrible loss or pay out.
Two, big banks, traditional and so called investment banks, all are hiding so called assets on their books. Why hide them? Well greed is one answer. If you never report the assets, the government cannot tax the profits.
The recent scenario in banks going belly up is not necessarily the result of deregulation.
The government, a slow lumbering giant, cannot regulate new or hidden forms of so called creative investment.
Now that the Social Security Trust Fund is indirectly bailing out all these marvelously lousy, incredibly stupid, non traditional fiscally irresponsible investment schemes, maybe it is time for big government to call a truce, work out what taxes if any it is willing to put on these new ponzi investment schemes and hedge funds.
The old adage about alcohol and tobacco should be applied. Legalize whatever it is you are doing in secret and tax the sin (hell) out of it!
The truth will set you free.
If you are such good business leaders, why are you hiding your activity? Are these legendary CEO bonuses co-conspirator bribes and not true earnings? Are you legitimate businesses or do you in your hearts fear Rico style investigation of your new global Enron styled accounting enterprises?
Duh!---
Not to pat myself on the back. A lot of people saw this tragedy coming and unfolding.
But nobody listens or learns. Nobody thinks that they can get burnt or get caught.
I assume that the business schools do not teach the History of Business Failure as in John Bunting and First Pennsylvania Bank or the Savings and Loan Scandal caused by deregulation in the late eighties or NOW! They should teach something like that along with their so called “ethics” course.
The irony of this whole thing and I know I might sound dumb saying this - maybe this Madoff guy was doing business the same way Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch etc. were doing business - the only problem that Madoff ran into with his ponzi scheme - and he probably did not know it was a ponzi scheme - he was just performing the normal way Wall Street has done business for the last thirty years - shell games, three card monty - ?
That the real problem Madoff had in the end was probalby the credit crunch caused by big corporate dinosaurs lying about assets and borrowing, borrowing, borrowing.
The Fed can't keep printing money indefinitely.
I knew the system was broken when they got a little fish - Martha Stewart - for $60,000 profit on insider trading related matters – obstruction of justice.
The whole freaking industry is a nest of good ole boys - insider tips - brokers and bankers skimming the system with fees, commissions and bonuses until the geese that laid the golden eggs - Freddie and Fannie - could not find any more bodies including the ones in funeral parlors to sign off on and buy sub prime mortgages.
Who is going to be honest when commissions and bonues are involved? Do you really think that anyboby will work for a $100K salary and a $50K bonus when you can opt for a $100K salary and a $10 million dollar annual bonus?
Hey! Hello! We are talking about human nature here. The so called free market capitialism B.S. is like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny - a nice story to tell kiddies or the public but get real - your broker has only one agenda - his/her own!
Oh well!
Si La Vie!
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put” - Wall Street back together again.
There is this Hedge Fund Blowout on Wall Street. A thought to be very trusted guy with a lot of credentials, track record and street experience has been accused of running a Ponzi scam with a projected loss of $50 billion dollars to investors.
The investors appear to be very rich and famous people as well as charitable trusts. Also Banco Santander of Spain appears as of this writing to have a $3 billion exposure and probable loss in this matter.
I wrote something in March entitled Big Bank, as an Ezine Article.
---To a simple person such as myself, big words like derivatives, kind of go over my head. I am reminded of a former bank that I worked for. For the sack of political politeness, let us call this defunct Wall Street dinosaur Big Bank. This is going back over twenty years.
Big Bank started to sell new fangled derivatives to their best customers until their best customers got burned. I remember news through the grapevine said that the CEO told his traders and brokers to go out and find some more big customers to replace the ones they just lost with this new Chinese checker style financing. Guess what. Word was out on the street. Nobody wanted to do strange business with Big Bank anymore.
Big Bank no longer exists. It got sold to a foreign bank that knew how to treat its customers.
What I am seeing on Wall Street these recent days is two things.
One, pyramid or ponzi schemes all eventually fail. You run out of suckers who trust the sell and end up with a terrible loss or pay out.
Two, big banks, traditional and so called investment banks, all are hiding so called assets on their books. Why hide them? Well greed is one answer. If you never report the assets, the government cannot tax the profits.
The recent scenario in banks going belly up is not necessarily the result of deregulation.
The government, a slow lumbering giant, cannot regulate new or hidden forms of so called creative investment.
Now that the Social Security Trust Fund is indirectly bailing out all these marvelously lousy, incredibly stupid, non traditional fiscally irresponsible investment schemes, maybe it is time for big government to call a truce, work out what taxes if any it is willing to put on these new ponzi investment schemes and hedge funds.
The old adage about alcohol and tobacco should be applied. Legalize whatever it is you are doing in secret and tax the sin (hell) out of it!
The truth will set you free.
If you are such good business leaders, why are you hiding your activity? Are these legendary CEO bonuses co-conspirator bribes and not true earnings? Are you legitimate businesses or do you in your hearts fear Rico style investigation of your new global Enron styled accounting enterprises?
Duh!---
Not to pat myself on the back. A lot of people saw this tragedy coming and unfolding.
But nobody listens or learns. Nobody thinks that they can get burnt or get caught.
I assume that the business schools do not teach the History of Business Failure as in John Bunting and First Pennsylvania Bank or the Savings and Loan Scandal caused by deregulation in the late eighties or NOW! They should teach something like that along with their so called “ethics” course.
The irony of this whole thing and I know I might sound dumb saying this - maybe this Madoff guy was doing business the same way Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch etc. were doing business - the only problem that Madoff ran into with his ponzi scheme - and he probably did not know it was a ponzi scheme - he was just performing the normal way Wall Street has done business for the last thirty years - shell games, three card monty - ?
That the real problem Madoff had in the end was probalby the credit crunch caused by big corporate dinosaurs lying about assets and borrowing, borrowing, borrowing.
The Fed can't keep printing money indefinitely.
I knew the system was broken when they got a little fish - Martha Stewart - for $60,000 profit on insider trading related matters – obstruction of justice.
The whole freaking industry is a nest of good ole boys - insider tips - brokers and bankers skimming the system with fees, commissions and bonuses until the geese that laid the golden eggs - Freddie and Fannie - could not find any more bodies including the ones in funeral parlors to sign off on and buy sub prime mortgages.
Who is going to be honest when commissions and bonues are involved? Do you really think that anyboby will work for a $100K salary and a $50K bonus when you can opt for a $100K salary and a $10 million dollar annual bonus?
Hey! Hello! We are talking about human nature here. The so called free market capitialism B.S. is like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny - a nice story to tell kiddies or the public but get real - your broker has only one agenda - his/her own!
Oh well!
Si La Vie!
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put” - Wall Street back together again.
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