Robert Oak's blog

Friday Movie Night - Bear Raid Edition

 It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

This week's videos are a series on naked shorts, or bear raids causing the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, a video showing the SEC response to Congress asking them how precisely they missed the biggest fraud and Ponzi scheme in history and Congressional Oversight Panel Chair Elizabeth Warren on the Daily show.

Sunday Morning Comics - Humor Deficit Edition

Sponsored by The Economy - Humor deficits are at an all time high. Therefore all humor will be cut from the state and local budgets, effective immediately. The United States has implemented a cap and trade laughing program. China has a surplus of laughs, primarily at the expensive of America. It is vital China agree to the Chortle protocol treaty, due to increasing global chuckle.
Cup O' Joe

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the Funnies!

 

Friday Movie Night - Frontline's Black Money Edition

 It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

Did you know that international, corporate and state bribery is valued at over $1 trillion a year?

Frontline's Black Money an in depth investigative documentary on the state of international bribery today.

This is a Lowell Bergman work so as one can imagine, the investigative report quality is truly in depth. Most interesting is the problem if one country stops bribery the idea is other nations will have a competitive advantage to obtain large defense contracts for they will pay the bribes.

TARP COPs are back - Report Assesses Treasury Strategy & Actions on Financial Crisis

The Congressional Oversight Panel has released a new report, Assessing Treasury’s Strategy: Six Months of TARP. First, the $$$:

Over the last six months, Treasury has spent or committed $590.4 billion of the TARP funds. Treasury has also relied heavily on the use of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet which has expanded by more than $1.5 trillion (not including expected TALF loans) in conjunction with the financial stabilization activities it has undertaken beyond its monetary policy operations. This has allowed Treasury to leverage TARP funds well beyond the funds appropriated by Congress.

Sunday Morning Comics - Government Financial Management Edition

Sponsored by The Federal Government - We guarantee this post is funny. If it is not funny, print out IRS form 2034, follow the 89 page instruction booklet, estimate your laughs, chuckles & smiles history, based on your uploaded medical profile, complete with your current medication list, for the last 5 years. Upon evaluation you will be compensated with jokes from President Obama himself, on a sliding scale, depending upon your current chuckle intake. Those determined not in smile need or who are laugh enriched will be expected to contribute to the snide comment campaign for future Presidential conferences.
Cup O' Joe

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the Funnies!

 

Friday Movie Night - Taleb & Johnson

 It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

This week is an Bill Moyers Now interview with Simon Johnson and PBS interview with Black Swan author Nicholas Taleb.

I was planning on showing Frontline but the last two documentaries have been truly infiltrated with some sort of special interest agenda. The deficit response was all about gutting social security and Medicare and the documentary on health care never uttered single payer universal health as an option. I think we all have watched enough corporate and special interest spin to last a lifetime so I am not even linking to them.

With that, below are interviews which you missed are a profound must see.

Bail Out Hypocrisy - Manufacturing Gets the Shaft, Financials Get to Craft

The White House is in full hypocrisy mode. While Obama Treasury Secretary Geithner tries to do a massive power grab, invites financial sector CEOs to craft policy and cooperate in their multi-trillion dollar U.S. taxpayer money pig fest, the auto industry is shipped to bankruptcy court. Even worse, Chrysler is to be broken up into good cars and bad cars, yet Italy (Fiat) gets the good cars and the United States gets the bad.

Meanwhile Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs struggles as reporters immediately question the different standards:

Sunday Morning Comics - Mark Fiore Cartoons Edition

Sponsored by The More Brazen Public Relations Foundation - Bringing the world Corporatism and Oligarchy One Message at a time. Remember: The Bigger the Lie, the More They will Believe it
Cup O' Joe

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the Funnies!

 

Mark Fiore is one of my favorite cartoonists, but he still hasn't gotten embedding media down. Below are some select economics cartoons from his site. Click on the images to start the cartoons.

 

Zombie Bank

fiore Zombie bank

Friday Movie Night - Banking With Hitler

 It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

I'm in a fairly foul mood about what is going on with Obama policy despite so many shouting from the roof tops this is not what they voted for...

So, I thought a stroll down history lane on how while WWII raged on U.S. and British banks were doing business with Hitler was in order to set the tone.

Geithner & Bernanke in Financial Services Committee Hearing

Folks, I must recommend turning off the pundits on TV, CNBC and even many of the blogs and tune into CSPAN.

Today in the House Financial Services Hearing, Oversight of the Federal Government’s Intervention at American International Group, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, along with New York Fed Chair William Dudley testified.

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