Fact-esque

Panic on Wall Street

The Masters of the Universe on Wall Street are shivering with fear, something M's of the U rarely experience, certainly not more than 3 or 4 times per each 4-hr day. Is this because:

1. They have finally realized that the endgame of the economy-theft they've organized will be a disaster for the planet as a whole?
2. Their economic forecasting models are predicting a massive stock slump next year?
3. They can't add?

The answer is, indeed, number 3.

"I'm sorry, what?"

The Rich v Reality: It's Not All Raffia Sno-Cones and Mink-Lined Toilet Bowl Scrubbers Any More

One hardly knows what to say. Dares one hope that some form of reality, however weak and watered down, is finally forcing its way through the gated, security-guarded, and electrified fences of the corporate aristocracy? Or not? On the one hand Goldman got away with its illegal stock-maneuvering-to-destroy-the-global-economy ploy by settling for a pittance of its ill-gotten gains.

Up and down Wall Street, the government's $550 million legal settlement with Goldman - to some, a slap in the face, to others, a slap on the wrist - has banking executives running the odds.

***

After two months of strident claims and equally strident denials, the matter was finally settled, and for a price Goldman could easily afford. The penalty amounted to about 15 days of profits. On Friday, as other banking shares tumbled along with the broad market, Goldman's share price rose again.

(emphasis added)

This is the Wall Street equivalent of fining a rapist $10 for the panties he ruined, or ordering the mugger who shot you for your shoes to turn in one of his bullets. It is beyond insulting, proving once again if more be needed that America has been corposmacked so completely that it can no longer tell the difference between justice and a keg party.

The Last Independence Day: Welcome to the Corporate States of America

For those of you keeping track, it was last year. This year the truth has become all too painfully obvious. Joel Pett, political cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, sums it up neatly.

We are locked down, locked into a system which, wherever we look, gives rights and money to the rich, the powerful, and the corporate - often the same group - and at the same time takes them away from us. And it doesn't seem to matter to anyone that this only makes things worse and worse. Believing that giving the rich control of the society will lead to economic prosperity for everyone is now dogma for the religion of $$$, also known as Molochianism. Like the Catholic notion of the Virgin Birth, there's no evidence whatever that it was or even could be true and plenty of evidence that it isn't but we've decided to take it on faith anyway. Because the rich told us to.

Talx: Making Sure Laid Off Workers Don't Collect Unemployment

Wall Street loves it when a company lays off workers. To them, it doesn't mean the company is in financial trouble, it means the company obviously hired more people than it needed and is clearing out the "deadwood". They call it getting "lean and mean" and they reward companies who do it by paying more for that company's stock, which makes the executives and investors richer.

Layoffs would make execs and invests even richer than they do now if there was just some way to avoid paying those pesky unemployment insurance fees. If those damn lazy bastards they just got rid of couldn't sit around on their fat asses enjoying the easy life on the company's dime, then the company could put that money where it naturally belongs - in the pockets of its execs and invests, not paying the rents for the trashy little apartments all those bums live in. But it's such a time-consuming business, stealing thousands of penny-ante unemployment claims, that it's almost not worth the effort.

Enter Talx (pronounced "talks"), a company that promises that for a very reasonable price they'll fight all those unemployment claims and save you $$millions$$. And they do. (Via Jim Hightower)

Big Business Starts Chewing on the Professional Class

Having starved the lower economic classes and decimated the middle classes, pushing them into the lower strata through a combination of rich-favoring tax policy, wage intimidation, off-shoring jobs, and outright theft, Big Business has begun to move its attention to ripping off the upper classes, starting with its own professionals.

Let's be sure we understand what this means. No one is safe from predators. NO ONE.

Massey and Wellpoint: BAU and FU, Too (Updated)

Wall Street lobbyists - or "pond scum" as we know them around here - may be scrambling to feed the leeches in Congress enough blood to make sure the banksters squeeze past the febrile attempts at banking "reform" that are all the Dems are interested in ("We gotta have 60 votes!" says Harry Reid again today, just like teh Olden Times). Poor Blanche has been told that her amendment won't be part of the Dodd bill and will have to sink or swim on its own, and poor Brad Sherman has yet to realize that Dodd accepted his tweaking because even if it's included, it doesn't mean anything. It only looks like it does, and that's the n of the g in DC.

To see how this is all likely to play out doesn't require a stinger of Owlsley and a crystal ball. All you have to do is look at some recent beneficiaries of the very same process and see how they're doing. Having been slapped down in public by the Congress and the media, are they chastened and correcting their previously appallingly greedy and inhumane behavior? Um, based on two recent stories, not exactly. (Both links via the indefatigable Mark G.)

Cognitive Dissonance: It's Not Just for Republicans Any More

I haven't looked but I suppose the usual suspects are all excited about the "anti-Wall Street" speech Obama gave today. You know, the one where he gave the banksters and their lobbyists Holy Heck.

C'ing the D's: Is There a Democrat Disconnect Between What They Say and What They Do?

Are we tired of the financial "reform" kabuki yet? I try not to waste time beating on dead horses, but I honestly don't know if this one's dead yet.

SEC Charges Against Goldman Strike Spark

The shocking news that the SEC was actually going to charge Goldman Sachs with criminal fraud, a move most of us had long ago given up expecting, was so well-received that it seems to have galvanized rank-and-file Democrats.

It's the Greed, Stupid

Alabama has been a reliably conservative, even ultraconservative, state for decades. Pro-business, pro-privatization, anti-regulatory, anti-tax. In Northport, the McDonalds where Ronnie Rayguns stopped for a Big Mac is a major tourist attraction. Maybe the only one. Its two wingnut Senators, Dick Shelby and Jeff Sessions, are powerhouses in the far-right GOP. It has professed to have no truck with any stoopid liberal notions like watchdog agencies to prevent predatory practices. It has insisted that Business Is Always Right and it has turned numerous govt programs that used to be considered "public" over to private corporations because, after all, govt doesn't know what it's doing and they do.

So it's kinda difficult to work up any sympathy when you read something like this from Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone. I mean, it's a shame and a crime but on the other hand, these are people who practically got down on their knees and begged to be ripped off.