...sectors of the doctrinal system serve to divert the unwashed masses and reinforce the basic social values: passivity, submissiveness to authority, the overriding virtue of greed and personal gain, lack of concern for others, fear of real or imagined enemies, etc. The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered. It's unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what's happening in the world. In fact, it's undesirable -- if they see too much of reality they may set themselves to change it.posted by notion at 7:05 AM on October 11, 2011 [24 favorites]
-Chomsky, 1993
The status .... is not quo.It just flows better.
During a conversation about tax cuts for the rich, I stunned a family member when I said "if anyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and make a million dollars, why haven't you done it?"posted by desjardins at 7:39 AM on October 11, 2011 [87 favorites]
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.posted by notion at 7:45 AM on October 11, 2011 [64 favorites]
--Samual Adams
"I don't blame Wall St, I blame those 99% protestors"Did you mean to link to a different website? Or did you just not read it for yourself?
"No jobs? Or an unwillingness to look for them?"
"I would never poop on a police car"
"Occupy the moon! End corporate tax loopholes for moon men! Because Earth isn’t enough for Socialists."
"For those of you at Occupy Wall Street, who shun personal responsiblity, you know those cool gadgets you use to share photos, videos, and tweet with your friends, both near and far away? Ya, they didn't come from people like you, who waste away the day."
Speaking before a packed hotel convention hall, Ms. Palin urged Americans and other people around the world to fight a system that doesn’t reward “honest hard work” but is “favoring the politically connected.”posted by BobbyVan at 10:26 AM on October 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
In Ms. Palin’s view of the world, “well-connected banks get bailed out”; “certain companies get special deals through governments”; and taxpayer dollars are “given to companies that are run by politicians’ campaign contributors so often.” In return, lobbyists and politicians “slip sweet deals and tax breaks into the tax code that they get to help to write.”
Those of us who pay for those of you who whine about all of that... or that... or whatever.As a single, simple man living in this world, I struggle sometimes to show the compassion to others that I ought. However, this blog is not the product of a single, simple man (or woman). It is the product of right-wing lobbyists, and its message is precisely one of denying compassion from the start. Erick Erickson, who holds up the first "we are the 53%" placard, has written "suck it up you whiners" (sic).
“I hear how they’re so caring for the poor and so forth,” Hatch said in remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, in reference to Democrats. “The poor need jobs! And they also need to share some of the responsibility.”Citigroup released a memo in 2006 detailing their "theory of Plutonomy"...
"Furthermore, the rising wealth gap between the rich and poor willThere's a second memo that I lost the link to, but here's a little excerpt from that one:
probably at some point lead to a political backlash.Whilst the rich are getting a greater shareof the wealth, and the poor a lesser share, political enfrachisement remains as was – one person, one vote (in the plutonomies). At some point it is likely that labor will fight back against the rising profit share of the rich and there will be a political backlash against the rising wealth of the rich. This could be felt through higher taxation (on the rich or indirectly though higher corporate taxes/regulation) or through trying to protect indigenous laborers, in a push-back on globalization – either anti-immigration, or protectionism. We don’t see this happening yet, though there are signs of rising political tensions. However we are keeping a close eye on developments."
➤ What could go wrong?The thesis there is the narrative that it IS the rich who run the economy - that their ever expanding wealth means that the only real money making is in luxury items to drive the economy. And the poor plebes aren't *really* contributors. It's quite disgusting, and there's quite a bit of self-congratulation and disdain for the rest of us.
Globalization, productivity, a rising profit share and dis-inflation have helped
plutonomy. Beyond war, inflation, the end of the technology/productivity wave
and/or financial collapse, which have killed previous plutonomies, we think the
most potent and short-term threat would be societies demanding a more
‘equitable’ share of wealth.
The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.link
Why don't you get forgiven for your mortgage? Because you over extended, took out up to 85% of your house's wealth, bought computers and flat screens, and now you can't pay it back.But this doesn't make any sense. First of all, this doesn't describe me. Second, well let me re-quote:
Did Jamie Dimond convince you to sign an interest-only mortgage? Did he come up with the idea for an interest only mortgage? Did any of the CEO's on 'Wall street' come up with the idea? (the answer to those questions is 'No', by the way).Well, I don't know that CEO's came up with anything, but I know that minorities were fraudulently pushed in sub-prime products. I know that the investment banks were hunting for sub-prime mortgages in order to bet against them. I know that those cynical bets created holes in bank balance sheets. I know that supporting the finance industry is where the Obama Administration is spending its political capital.
...the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report notes that mortgage underwriting standards were abandoned, allowing many more loans to be made. It blames the regulators for not standing pat while this occurred. However, the report fails to ask, let alone answer, why standards were abandoned.I just don't believe that the investment banks were operating in good faith. What's more, I think that all of the talk about what people "should" know based on their own research is unrealistic. People should be able to make good decisions about healthcare, but they consistently don't...and their own lives are on the line.
...the report notes that bonuses skyrocketed for the industry during the bubble years. Where did this money come from? Why had the mortgage industry never before generated such high compensation?
The obvious answer is that good loans did not generate hugely excessive bonuses, but bad loans did.
What happened is that the benefits for originating bad loans exceeded the cost of these negative consequences – someone was paying enough more for bad loans to overwhelm the normal economic incentives to resist such bad underwriting.
The best example of this is John Paulson, who earned nearly $20 billion for his fund shorting subprime. This amount of money was not ever possible or conceivable in the mortgage business prior to that point. The only way it could occur was through the creation of a tremendous number of bad loans, followed by a bet against them. Betting on good loans could never generate this much gain.
But it was John Paulson (pictured at left), the very smart manager and namesake of hedge fund Paulson & Co., who created the concept of the sophisticated, complex and ethically challenged "synthetic" securities that were unavailable to ordinary investors and are about to dictate historic financial reform on Wall Street and beyond.As for who pays the mortgage broker, it seems to me that, ultimately, all costs associated with the extension of the loan must be born by the borrower.
The controversial security Paulson shaped for Goldman was called the Abacus Fund, and it was a rather elegant piece of financial engineering. The Abacus Fund--famously described in an email written by Goldman's Tourre as "all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades"--effectively bundled up the riskiest sub-prime mortgage loans because they offered an attractively high yield to investors. Then Paulson bet that the same securities would fail--making billions of dollars at the expense of their investors and the U.S. housing market. link
In the spring of 1987, the Federal Reserve Board votes 3-2 in favor of easing regulations under Glass-Steagall Act, overriding the opposition of Chairman Paul Volcker. The vote comes after the Fed Board hears proposals from Citicorp, J.P. Morgan and Bankers Trust advocating the loosening of Glass-Steagall restrictions to allow banks to handle several underwriting businesses, including commercial paper, municipal revenue bonds, and mortgage-backed securities. Thomas Theobald, then vice chairman of Citicorp, argues that three "outside checks" on corporate misbehavior had emerged since 1933: "a very effective" SEC; knowledgeable investors, and "very sophisticated" rating agencies. Volcker is unconvinced, and expresses his fear that lenders will recklessly lower loan standards in pursuit of lucrative securities offerings and market bad loans to the public. For many critics, it boiled down to the issue of two different cultures - a culture of risk which was the securities business, and a culture of protection of deposits which was the culture of banking...They dismantled and bought our government, broke our financial system by removing all of the safety nets and regulatory oversight, gambled our entire financial future, fucking busted, and then asked us to pay for it while they claim that a 3.6% increase on top incomes will harm the economy. With their track record, I'd say they shouldn't be trusted to run a banana stand, and they sure as hell don't deserve that sort of access to my elected officials.
In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issues a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent).
This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed's 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20 of Glass-Steagall effectively renders Glass-Steagall obsolete. Virtually any bank holding company wanting to engage in securities business would be able to stay under the 25 percent limit on revenue...
At a dinner in Washington in February 1998, Sandy Weill of Travelers invites Citicorp's John Reed to his hotel room at the Park Hyatt and proposes a merger. In March, Weill and Reed meet again, and at the end of two days of talks, Reed tells Weill, "Let's do it, partner!" ...
The transaction would have to work around regulations in the Glass-Steagall and Bank Holding Company acts governing the industry, which were implemented precisely to prevent this type of company: a combination of insurance underwriting, securities underwriting, and commecial banking. The merger effectively gives regulators and lawmakers three options: end these restrictions, scuttle the deal, or force the merged company to cut back on its consumer offerings by divesting any business that fails to comply with the law.
Weill meets with Alan Greenspan and other Federal Reserve officials before the announcement to sound them out on the merger, and later tells the Washington Post that Greenspan had indicated a "positive response." In their proposal, Weill and Reed are careful to structure the merger so that it conforms to the precedents set by the Fed in its interpretations of Glass-Steagall and the Bank Holding Company Act.
Unless Congress changed the laws and relaxed the restrictions, Citigroup would have two years to divest itself of the Travelers insurance business (with the possibility of three one-year extensions granted by the Fed) and any other part of the business that did not conform with the regulations. Citigroup is prepared to make that promise on the assumption that Congress would finally change the law -- something it had been trying to do for 20 years -- before the company would have to divest itself of anything....
After 12 attempts in 25 years, Congress finally repeals Glass-Steagall, rewarding financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts. Supporters hail the change as the long-overdue demise of a Depression-era relic.
On Oct. 21, with the House-Senate conference committee deadlocked after marathon negotiations, the main sticking point is partisan bickering over the bill's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, which sets rules for lending to poor communities. Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.
On Oct. 22, Weill and John Reed issue a statement congratulating Congress and President Clinton, including 19 administration officials and lawmakers by name. The House and Senate approve a final version of the bill on Nov. 4, and Clinton signs it into law later that month.
Just days after the administration (including the Treasury Department) agrees to support the repeal, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former co-chairman of a major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, raises eyebrows by accepting a top job at Citigroup as Weill's chief lieutenant. The previous year, Weill had called Secretary Rubin to give him advance notice of the upcoming merger announcement. When Weill told Rubin he had some important news, the secretary reportedly quipped, "You're buying the government?"
There is no easy way to compare the price of having a deposit account relationship at BoA with that of having one at Wells Fargo, much less to compare every deposit account relationship within my local area. Look at the USAA form linked above--it tries to do a comparison with some competitors, including BoA (it's from before the new BoA fee). That's a start, but it doesn't come close to showing all the differences between the account terms. And good luck finding the same thing that includes Chase, Citi, and CapOne.That guy testified before Congress. And he's talking about basic accounts. What's more, Felix Salmon looked at checking accounts (checking accounts!?!) offered at one bank and concluded that understanding the product was extremely hard:
Now, for all I know, the community bank a few blocks away from me has a much better deposit account deal than BoA, but the search costs of learning about that are high enough that I won't bother to find out. There's no easy source for the information, much less a standardized set of metrics for comparison
Even the login screen is ridiculously confusing: before you can even enter your username, you have to choose between one of nine different Citi websites to log into. If you have a Citi bank account, and a Citi credit card, and a Citi mortgage, and Citi ThankYou rewards, which of those sites are you meant to log in to? Why can’t Citi just make sure that each username is unique, and log you in to whatever your account is automatically?And that is on a new feature that Salmon was invited as part of Citi's marketing campaign. It's on the up-and-up. If you...
JOHN KING: The Democrats think they have a political issue with this issue of taxing more affluent Americans. The Senate Democratic plan would have put a surtax on millionaires. If you look at public opinion polling -- the Washington Post/Bloomberg News poll just asked this: do you support, for deficit reduction, raising taxes on households earning over $250,000 a year? 68% of Americans support raising taxes on those above $250 grand, 53% of Republicans. Why are House Republicans and Senate Republicans holding so fast to absolutely no taxes on more affluent Americans?what is this i dont even
REP. BLACKBURN: What we know is that people that want to pay more can already pay more! All they have to do is make out a check to the U.S. Treasury and if they feel as if they are not paying their fair share, they can do that, that doesn't need a bill. Anybody that feels like they are undertaxed, they can just go ahead and pay more. They can contact their member of Congress, they can contact the U.S. Treasury, they can get that check right in. And I'm certain the U.S. treasury would be able to help them with it.
We judge people all the time. If I can judge people who go on Maury Povich and make asses of themselves because they should know better, why can't I judge people that make ignorant financial decisions?Because when roughly 25% of homes are underwater for the first time in our history, it's a pretty good sign that that the system is rigged, not that 25% of mortgage holders are idiots. When unemployment and CEO pay has tripled in fifteen years, it's a sign that the system is rigged. When Wall Street is telling us to stay in our homes and fight the good fight while they ship our jobs overseas to push up their stock by a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, it's a sign that the system is rigged.
Erick Erickson, Founder Of ‘We Are The 53%’ Site, Whines About His Brand New House And Well Paid CNN Gig
"The three jobs Erickson wants you to believe he scrapes by on include occasional paid opinion blogging at RedState.com, a lucrative television contract with CNN, and a radio gig that paid the previous host $165,183 a year (Herman Cain’s financial disclosures show he was paid this amount before Erickson took over his spot). The house Erickson can’t sell? Bibb County, Georgia records reveal that Erickson just bought a new $374,900 house in February of this year, and owns another that, according to an estimate by the website Zillow, might be worth slightly less than the amount he paid for it in 2001. And its likely that Erickson’s CNN job alone provides him with a personal driver and covered travel expenses when he needs to appear on the show. ...
"–Erickson’s Blog Caught In Pay-For-Blogging Scheme Orchestrated By Malaysian Lobbyists: The most unusual example of RedState’s fraudulent blogging may be the case of Josh Trevino, RedState’s co-founder. The government of Malaysia paid a consulting firm owned by Trevino and other regular RedState contributors to promote the ruling party using various conservative websites. Trevino, who recently collaborated with Erickson to created “We Are The 53%” site, even sponsored blogger meet and greets and fake media town halls with the current Malaysian prime minister. ..."
When we write history books we will wonder why the government seemed to coincidentally do the things that favor Goldman Sachs and somehow in extremis get them out of trouble. -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Philip Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, at a hearing held by his panel on Jan. 13 (2010), questioned how banks could underwrite poisonous securities and then bet against them. “It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars,” he said.And this:
The Securities and Exchange Commission securities fraud complaint against Goldman Sachs (GS) and Fabrice Tourre makes for some fascinating reading. In essence, it says that Mr. Tourre, a Goldman employee who is now 31, back in 2007 helped John Paulson's hedge fund set up a "synthetic collateralized debt obligation" so that Mr. Paulson's hedge fund could short it -- and then went out and sold the long side of the security to other investors without adequately disclosing that the whole security had been designed with Mr. Paulson's cooperation for Mr. Paulson to short.Plus $10 billion in TARP money, a further $20.9 billion of long-term borrowing secured by the FDIC and access to the Fed Window (all of which was made possible by the New York Fed when Goldman became a "Bank Holding Company" in September 2008 - Remember Steven Friedman was chairman of the NY Fed at the time, and Goldman was only able to become a Bank Holding Company because of the repeal of the restrictions in the Glass-Steagall act).
Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.Or this:
Gretchen Morgenson reported that Goldman Sachs was A.I.G.’s largest trading partner, with some $20 billion of exposure to the insurance giant. Goldman subsequently said its exposure to risk from A.I.G. was hedged by other investments.'Conspiracy' may not be the right word, but you've sure picked an interesting industry to characterize (and I'm paraphrasing) as a pitiable scapegoat who needs to be protected from the rage of the unwashed masses.
A CBS News analysis of the revolving door between Goldman and government reveals at least four dozen former employees, lobbyists or advisers at the highest reaches of power both in Washington and around the world.Or this:
Exclusive: Goldman Sachs VP Changed His Name, Now Advances Goldman Lobbying Interests As Top Staffer To (Republican Congressman and Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee) Darrell Issaposted by syzygy at 12:47 AM on October 14, 2011
As a potential lottery winner, I support the Bush tax cuts.
Follow the sheep to their shearing? No thanks.yeah don't want to be one of the people those sheep pull
I would be totally behind a moderate, say 7-10% tax on wealth. Think how much money the govt will pull in that will allow it, with moderate and sane reductions in spending to balance it's books┐('～`；)┌ sane reductions hm
The entire legal and cultural system is set up as a machine designed to produce wealth and reward enterprising activity. It is not a machine that rewards poetry or classics or the fine arts. Other places in the world are much better at that. If those things are of the utmost importance to you, go to those places and be happy. Don't stay here, like the square peg trying to fit into the round hole, and be miserable.oh lord
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posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:40 AM on October 11, 2011 [50 favorites]