Corrupt bankers and corrupt government regulators

Robert Scheer sums up the cozy relationship between the U.S. government and the financial sector and it's ugly. One federal judge has the guts to tell it straight, but where is the SEC and where is the Obama Administration? In the process of acquiring failed brokerage house Merrill Lynch, Bank of America sneaks more than $1 Million in bonuses each to 696 Merrill Lynch executives who ran the company into the ground (Merrill Lynch had lost $27 Billion). These outrageous payments occurred while BofA was receiving $45 Billion in taxpayer money as part of the "bailout." On top of that, 39,000 additional Merrill Lynch employees were each paid an average of $91,000 in bonuses, an amount that the Bank of America attorney suggested wasn't a significant amount. New York federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff disagreed, saying:

"I'm glad you think that $91,000 is not a lot of money; I wish the average American was making $91,000."

How corrupt is the government/banking relationship? The SEC did sue BofA of misleading it's shareholders, but this sweetheart settlement stinks to high hell. Consider this quote from Scheer's article:

The SEC complaint did accuse BofA of misleading its shareholders, but instead of digging deeply into how such decisions had been made and by whom, a deal was concocted in which BofA got off with a paltry $33 million fine. That is less than the bonus received by one of the Merrill execs. Yet the SEC deal would have closed the case on how that decision was made.

"You filed a rather uninformative, bare-bones complaint," Judge Rakoff told SEC lawyer David Rosenfeld, who lamely defended the decision to avoid going after the bankers involved, and it is instructive of whose interest he was serving that "[t]he lawyer for Bank of America periodically whispered what appeared to be suggestions to Mr. Rosenfeld," as a New York Times article put it. Whispering between government regulators and the Wall Street honchos ostensibly being regulated is what got us into this mess in the first place.

In the meantime, TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren is repeatedly warning that the same toxic assets that triggered the meltdown are still on the banks' books. She's warning of the "looming commercial mortgage crisis."

Continue ReadingCorrupt bankers and corrupt government regulators

John Yoo is haunted

Remember John Yoo, the Bush Administration lawyer who was willing to drag his Yale J.D. through the dirt by writing government memos that justified torture? If Yoo thought he could simply walk away from all of the commotion and hide out far away, he was wrong. Here he is (believe it or not) teaching law at Chapman University in Australia. During a recent class, Yoo was haunted by an old "friend" (the video is less than two minutes long): My question: Is this an improper disruption of a classroom, or is it just desserts?

Continue ReadingJohn Yoo is haunted

The Wagons are circling!

While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning (courtesy of my hotel) I was appalled, but unsurprised, to read two extremely partisan opinion pieces on Obama's healthcare proposals and the 'reaction' to them. In a piece entitled "The Health Care Grail", William McGurk clearly criticizes the White House, who "yesterday unveiled a new White House Web site accusing critics of scaring Americans 'with half truths and outright lies'". Unsurprisingly, Mr McGurk makes no mention that this is indeed a valid, and independently substantiated, criticism of the astroturf campaign against healthcare reform. Instead he attempts to make the case that this administration's healthcare reform proposals are a "Doctrine" and that "the president and his allies see disagreement over health care as less a political dispute than the trampling of sacred doctrine"

Continue ReadingThe Wagons are circling!

When language fails

"War is what happens when language fails." --Margaret Atwood Yesterday the New York Times ran a piece by Sheryl Gay Stolberg about the recent disruptions to town hall meetings that were convened to discuss health care reform. Stolberg points out that this sort of "activism" subverts the democratic process. It is aimed not at furthering, but at overwhelming public discourse:

The traditional town hall meeting, a staple of Congressional constituent relations, had been hijacked, overrun by sophisticated social-networking campaigns — those on the right protesting so loudly as to shut down public discourse and those on the left springing into action to shut down the shutdowns.
(I once tried to discuss the first Gulf War with a dittohead, back in the day. He shouted at me for fifteen minutes; every now and then he yelled, "What do you say to that?" I couldn't say anything, it would've been like shouting into a full force gale.) Meanwhile, Snopes has an email making the rounds that claims that Obama's proposed health care reform bill mandates "euthanasia counseling" for seniors. Another pleads, "Please do not let Obama sign senior death warrants." Health care reform is just one front on a larger American skirmish, of course; one that's been going on for most of my lifetime. I was a child of the 60's, when social upheaval was just as marked as it is now. But in the 60's, the country was in good economic shape. And the outrage then really did originate at the grassroots. Today, tough economic times and the specter of America's gradually waning superpowers have intensified the culture wars. So have the right-wing media, which love to whip up hysteria, religious fanaticism, and paranoia--anything to further their political agenda. The town hall shoutfests, like the teabag protests earlier this year, may be Astroturf, but they tap into real, and fairly widespread, fear and rage. Lies, misinformation, and attempts to obstruct civil discourse make good-faith dialogue difficult if not impossible. How far will they go, and how do we overcome them? And if we can't, could the U.S. descend into another civil war? (Surely not. That's my imagination working overtime, fueled by my own paranoia. Isn't it?)

Continue ReadingWhen language fails

Improper foundation! Let the ignorant people remain silent?

In a courtroom, a witness is not allowed to speak unless he or she demonstrates a reasonable familiarity with the topic at hand. If witnesses start spouting off without knowing what they are talking about, a lawyer may object, "Improper foundation!" and the judge should sustain the objection. That seems to be what Bill Maher is getting at in a recent post at Huffpo. Here's an excerpt:

And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways. I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War.
Many of us are totally in the dark. Many of us want to be informed, but how can you be, given the 1,000 page bills couched in obscure language crafted in backroom deals with the corporate interests who are really running the process through obscenely large campaign contributions?

Continue ReadingImproper foundation! Let the ignorant people remain silent?