Fact-esque

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.)

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.

Banking Reform: We Can Do It If We Want To, We Just Don't Want To

OK, so Krugman isn't wild about Dodd's banking reform bill. Nevertheless he is bending over backwards to make it sound better than it is.

[H]ow good is the legislation on the table, the bill put together by Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut?

Not good enough. It's a good-faith effort to do what needs to be done, but it would create a system highly dependent on the wisdom and good intentions of government officials. And as the history of the last decade demonstrates, trusting in the quality of officials can be dangerous to the economy's health.

"Good faith effort"? That's pushing the benefit of the doubt past the breaking point. The admittedly minimal House bill was a "good faith effort" if your definition of "good faith" is an effort to just barely control the worst of Wall Street's usual financial scams, shenanigans, and skullduggery. Dodd's bill is a bad faith effort to make non-reform smell like reform, thus keeping Wall Street happy with him so his life-after-the-Senate will be a very comfortable one.

Resolution Authority: "Don't Tell Me About the Termites Until the House Falls Down"

Mike Konczal at Rortybomb is still looking at Dodd's Senate Banking Reform Bill. In comparing it to Barney Frank's House version, he finds a few significant differences. One of them is the way they handle prevention: Barney's does (barely), Dodd's doesn't.

Financial "Reform" to Stumble Over Enforcement

The path to passage of the financial "reform" bill is fraught with characteristic obstacles provided by the usual suspects. The bankers don't want to be regulated and the BD/GOP wants whatever the bankers want. Now that the two bills, Barney Frank's House bill and Chris Dodd's Senate bill, can be put side-by-side and compared, it won't take long to figure out what the sticking point's going to be. Pretty much the same sticking point that always stops such bills.

Enforcement.

Chris Dodd and His Non-Reform Banking Reform Comedy Crew

I've been following the productions of the Banking Reform Comedy Club for about a decade now, and two of the main skits - "Credit Card Reform" and "Regulatory Reform" - were performed this past week. The former I was going to write about some time ago but then I decided to wait and see how banks reacted to it. Well, it went into effect on Monday of last week and Sam Pizzigati tells you how it worked out so I don't have to. (Via Norwegianity)

On Monday, the new credit card reform law enacted last year - legislation designed to protect consumers from excessive credit card fees and penalties - went into effect.

By Wednesday, consumer watchdogs at the Demos think tank in New York were reporting that banks nationwide were blitzing consumers with "a wide range of new and excessive fees and penalties" that sidestep the new law's prohibitions.

If you still have active credit cards I strongly advise you to read his column so you'll at least know how they're ripping you off even if you can't stop it.

But it's the latter skit I want to review today because it's such a classic example of its type. All the comic elements are there: hypocrisy, pretense, slapstick self-promotion, witless pseudo-Fieldsian exaggeration, and bipartisan clown-car pratfalls with Ace Clown Chris Dodd playing lead.

Dodd Wants to Dump the Volcker Rule. So What?

One of the reasons I love firedoglake is the diversity. They don't all agree on everything and you can get double or triple perspectives on the same issue. Like today. David Dayen (Hullaballoo's dday for those who don't know him when he isn't wearing his Superman suit) is all upset because Chris Dodd has expressed a willingness to drop the Volcker Rule because banks don't care for it.

Sen. Chris Dodd appears obsessed with getting a bipartisan financial reform package through the Senate Banking Committee, no matter if it makes a mockery of reform, no matter if it includes virtually nothing to protect consumers or deal with the problem of “too big to fail” financial firms. He’s already seeking to drop the Volcker rule put forward by the White House that would limit proprietary trading from banks....

But masaccio, my favorite go-to guy for explanations of financial skullduggery, writing on the same topic, couldn't care less. The rule, he says, is a joke anyway.

"Is There Nothing We Can Do?"

OK, hard lesson: probably not. The bail-out restrictions the Democrats have on the table are maybe important for the fairness issue (a political decision they may go for because they're hoping the tar-and-feathers waiting for Wall Street bankers won't stick to them) but it's hardly sufficient to reverse a process that may very well have gone beyond the PONR and most likely has. (via Avedon)

Most people don't understand what happened on Thursday, but the build-up of bad news on the Lehman default and the $85 billion government takeover of AIG, triggered a run on the money markets and a freeze in interbank lending. The overnight LIBOR rate (London Interbank Offered Rate) more than doubled to 6.44 per cent. Bank of America reported overnight borrowing rates in excess of 6 per cent. Longer-term LIBOR rates also rose sharply. On Wednesday, jittery investors removed their money from money markets and flooded short-term US Treasurys for the assurance of a government guarantee on their savings even though interest rates had turned negative which means that their balance would actually shrink at the date of maturity. This is unprecedented, but it does help to illustrate how raw fear can drive the market.

The TED spread (the TED Spread measures market stress by revealing the reluctance of banks to lend to each other) widened and the credit markets froze in place. Borrowing three-month dollars on the interbank market and the U.S. Treasury's three-month borrowing costs widened five full percentage points. That's huge. The banking system shut down.       

What does it mean? It means the Federal Reserve has lost control of the system. The market is driving interest rates now, and the market is terrified. End of story.

End of economy, end of country, end of planet.
 

Arrest Karl Rove NOW

Not that it was unexpected but Bad Boy/Evil Troll Karl Rove has just refused to honor a Congressional subpoena. Well, why shouldn't he? Dozens of other Bush minions have ignored their subpoenas and nothing ever happened to them. The Democrats did NOTHING and they'll do NOTHING again.

Former White House adviser Karl Rove defied a congressional subpoena and refused to testify Thursday about allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department, including whether he influenced the prosecution of a former Democratic governor of Alabama.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, chairman of a House subcommittee, ruled with backing from fellow Democrats on the panel that Rove was breaking the law by refusing to cooperate — perhaps the first step toward holding him in contempt of Congress.

Lawmakers subpoenaed Rove in May in an effort to force him to talk about whether he played a role in prosecutors' decisions to pursue cases against Democrats, such as former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, or in firing federal prosecutors considered disloyal to the Bush administration.

Rove had been scheduled to appear at the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. A placard with his name sat in front of an empty chair at the witness table, with a handful of protesters behind it calling for Rove to be arrested.

Why TurdBlossom doesn't have to worry:

A decision on whether to pursue contempt charges now goes to the full Judiciary Committee and ultimately to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi is DLC and their strategy is to NEVER challenge Bush or the Republicans because that would make the Democrats look weak, a strategy Glenn Greenwald calls "Strength through bowing". Glenn notes the AP Headline "Senate bows to Bush" and notes:

Their rationale for doing that is that it prevents the Republicans from depicting them as "weak," because nothing exudes strength like bowing.

We have to arrest Rove for contempt or Congress, whose credibility is all but gone, will vanish like a night wind and everybody will ignore everything Congress wants from this point on. It has already gone waaaaay too far.

Arrest him. TODAY.

Possible Protection and Defense for the Constitution

From True Majority:

Your calls and emails worked! We just got word that Senators Dodd and Feingold will step up as progressive leaders and filibuster this legislation. Here's part of the joint statement they just released:

                   

"We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies."¹

Call your Senators and demand support for the filibuster.  Call Dodd and Feingold and make sure they stand by this latest sort-of-promise by thanking them for protecting and defending the Constitution with a filibuster of the FISA bill.