wall street

Stop The Madness

Yesterday I put up an Instapopulist post regarding the national demonstrations which will be happening tomorrow. This effort is being organized and coordinated by a new grass roots organization called A New Way Forward.

Today, I want to emphasize the importance of showing up at these demonstrations, in light of the new article from Michael Hirsch of Newsweek. Here's the link to the story.

As Hirsch points out, the administration has received push back from some members of the Senate. And there are some slight indications that there is sentiment within the administration to institute modest to serious regulations. Yet, the NY Fed is currently holding meetings with WS insiders and their traditional regulators, to decide the type of regulation that would work best for them. In other words, regulation lite and no transparency to outside agencies.

Gold, Safe Haven and Nationalization

It seems Wall Street doesn't like the idea of nationalizing the banks

Fears of a nationalisation of Citigroup and Bank of America shook global markets on Friday, sending shares in the troubled banks tumbling and dragging down the entire financial sector.

It emerged that the US government is to begin its planned “stress tests” of banks’ financial health, which Wall Street executives told the Financial Times could start next week.

Gold prices broke the $1,000 a troy ounce barrier, the highest level in 11 months, as investors shunned risky assets for the relative safety of bullion amid renewed fears about the health of the global financial system.

Super wealthy today are better off than royalty of old

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism this past weekend dismantled a small piece in the Wall Street Journal which had attempted to show that income disparity in the U.S. is not at an all time record. Back in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, compared the compensation of French and American civil servants, with the king and President. What the Journal added was a comparison of the U.S. minimum wage with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's annual pay and bonus of $69 million in 2007.

But the King was almost certainly the richest and best paid individual in France. He made 8,000 times the most menial civil worker. Our disparity (minimum wage versus Lloyd Blankfein) at a mere 5,000+ isn't quite as bad, right?

Best Rant of the Week! Senator Claire McCaskill - "These people are Idiots!" (video)

Now this is the Senator I remember, Claire McCaskill Speaks Truth!

CNN:

We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses.

 

Madoff Ponzi Scheme Could Cause $17 Billion in Lost Tax Revenue

This title is most amusing, Madoff Scandal May Cost Tax Revenue, where the estimates of lost revenue are as high as $17 Billion dollars.

Considering we have $8 trillion in pledges to the financial industry while Congress and the Bush administration pound on a poor auto workers union and AIG doubles it's executives salaries, doesn't $17 Billion seem trivial?

Is the street smelling a fight ahead?

It's almost 3am here in Chicago, and the S&P futures are down 9 points, while the Dow is down almost 60, not to mention the NASDAQ 100 being down almost 10. Now perhaps this is simply profit-taking from those two monster rallies last week. But from what I'm hearing, this plan by Paulson isn't a sure fire pass. There seems to be some resistance forming, and I think The Street smells a fight coming.

How to Add $900 BIllion In Record Time to the Deficit? - Bailout Wall Street

Government bailout tally tops $900 billion according to Reuters.

They tally it up and it ain't pretty.

  • $200B - Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac
  • $300B - FHA
  • $4B - local community grants
  • $85B - AIG (loan)
  • $87B - JP Morgan for refinancing
  • $29B - Bear Sterns
  • $200B - outstanding loans

What does this imply just saddling the deficit in such rapid succession when the United States already is running on fumes due to bad policy and a absurdly expensive war?

Here's a laugh, just a couple of months ago the CBO was horrifying people that the bail out would cost $25B and they even claimed there was a 50% change that money would not be needed.

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