naked capitalism

Anonymous says:

Got Clawbacks? Thugz on the Bailout
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/got-clawbacks-thugz-on-the-bailout/

One set of short-sighted quick buck entrepreneurs, on their kindred Wall St. brethren….
Comments on the bailout from a group of former NYC drug dealers/hustlers… (not surprisingly, they’re free market to the bone.)

Anonymous says:

a warning to your readers to not click on any of the banned Aussie sites: mostly kiddie porn

Anonymous says:

re:Anon @ 3:32,

his.. bits.

Anonymous says:

Isn’t it time for the Fed govt to take advantage of property value declines on Long Island to begin its re-wildernessing. Restoring canine wolves to the island would be an biological improvement over the human variety currently extant.

Gentlemutt says:

Yves, Thanks for posting the James Galbraith piece. He is the anti-Rubin, and that is what we need.

Anonymous says:

What more perfect picture of big bucks bursting bull butt bubble!

Anonymous says:

Bus driver in my town has been suspended for this incident relating to the seal hunt:

http://tinyurl.com/c7xl3v

To trust too much, as Harvard’s Roger Fisher and William Ury once pointed out, is unwise. And given the environmental abuses committed on the planet, one could hardly blame anyone, protest groups included, for being wary of any commercial interest where other species are concerned.

But that one should not be completely trusting does not alleviate one of the obligation to be completely trustworthy. On that note the aforesaid protest groups have let down their cause badly. There are many instances of stated objectives being subsequently found to be but the first round in an escalating series of demands, once those objectives are won. (Fisher and Ury refer to this as ‘upping the ante’ and no, they do not sanction it as principled action.) Outright deception is often used as a tactic, presumably on the basis that all’s fair in love and war. For example, twenty-one (!) years after the hunt of whitecoat seal pups was banned in Canada(source: Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing, 30 December, 1987), PR releases by anti-sealing groups continue to imply otherwise. Your linked Times article is a case in point.

Not only are protestors guilty, themselves, of not speaking the truth, they can arguably be said to speak more from a position of power, than to it. On that note, you are not going to convince me that the most serious environmental problems emanate from an region (Atlantic Canada) of which the entire population is barely a tenth of the greater New York area alone.

The point, Yves, is that a belief in one’s own moral superiority on an issue isn’t enough. A lust to win contests of will – and such groups only too often try to score such victories – is a good part of why the planet is in its present condition in the first place. Abandon the bully pulpit – you’re capable of better.

john bougearel says:

What is noteworthy about the BN story below is that the ex-CFO of C who managed the atomic mushroom of toxic assets onto its balance sheet will now oversee the disposal of these assets! What an f-in joke! Instead of being shit-canned, he gets reassigned to sell the same assets at firesale prices to private investors, while we the taxpayers pay the gap/difference between what the bank wants to be paid for these assets and what private investors are willing to pay for them.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a2OC1PIyLDVA&refer=news

"Citigroup Shifts Crittenden to Oversee Units for Sale; Kelly Is Named CFO Citigroup Inc., whose biggest shareholder is poised to be the U.S. taxpayer, reassigned Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden to oversee the Citi Holdings unit that houses $850 billion of assets the bank plans to sell."

Anonymous says:

Re: ranchers

It’s not a viable business, hence they have been on life support far longer than the bankers. We are spending ungodly sums for the 2% of U.S. beef that is ranched to support the ranchers’ “way of life”, which bears a striking resemblance to a bankers way of life modulo their bad taste.

Peripheral Visionary says:

Anon 10:50: Well put.

“Much as I hate to say it, and as devoted an environmentalist as I am, there’s a reason wolves were feared and vilified in fairy tales: They’re serious and scary predators.”

Totally agreed. Wolves are wild animals, and represent a genuine threat to both livestock and humans. Wolves are full-blown, full-time carnivores that, hunting in packs, can and will take down anything. The settlers hunted the wolves to extinction, not just because of the threat to livestock, but because of the very real threat to children (and pets, and even, on occasion, adults.)

For various reasons, bears, coyotes, and mountain lions are able to live in reasonably close proximity to humans, but I simply do not see that happening with wolves (nor with wolverines, although they’re very rare creatures.) I fully support protection of certain wolf populations, but they should be the populations that are in deep wilderness areas, where there is rare contact with humans. People living in areas bordering wolf populations need the ability to defend themselves against wolves.

I think we’ve fallen into the trap of seeing wolves as wild versions of the friendly domesticated dogs we are familiar with. That is a seriously flawed perception; we should be thinking of them as being closer to sharks or alligators than to dogs.

And to echo the comment above me, the only “support” ranchers get is that they are able to lease Federal lands at below-market rates; but I would hasten to point out that “market rates” on ranchland have more to do with its potential for real estate development than ranching. Ranching or subdivisions: I know which of the two I prefer, and I have no problem with the Federal and local governments cutting ranchers a deal on land leases.

john bougearel says:

@ non 11.45,

The way Tiny Timmie is setting up his private-public bank initiative is to have the gov’t (i.e. the taxpayers) pay the difference between the firesale price that private investors pay for those toxic (non-performing) assets and the mark-to-model price that the banks are willing to sell those toxic assets for. Timmie will be detailing his public-private bank plan to us this coming week. Stay tuned and brace yourself for another shitty soundbite from Geithner.It is coming to a theater near you soon enough.

The taxpayers-at-large will thus be subsidizing these private investors buying this toxic waste. Cretin-den may even be dispose of these assets to private investors that he personally knows and has relationships with. Ain’t the life of cronyism grand?

Anonymous says:

That is a seriously flawed perception; we should be thinking of them as being closer to sharks or alligators than to dogs.

Except that shark attacks number about 50 a year (~10% fatal), while wolf attacks are maybe 50 a century (so rare that statistics are likely unreliable).

Is there even one documented instance of a wolverine attack on a human? (I can’t find one online, but maybe I’m using the wrong search.)

As a matter of perspective: about a thousand people are struck by lighting every year, ~10% dying as a result.

It is not surprising that there is a need to control the number of wolves.

Actually, there is a far greater need to control how humans dispose of their garbage.

john bougearel says:

Anon,

I wish it were so, and I wish I did not have to sound off so jaded about it, but re-assigning the CFO of Citi to dispose of the toxic waste he had a hand in putting on the books in the first place… this is over the top.

You are right to mention that every previous plan to overpay for this crap has thus far been rejected. But Geithner’s public-private bad bank is precisely a reincarnation of the same crap that Paulson has been propagating since M-LEC. The corrupt powers that be at the US Treasury just won’t stop this attempt to expropriate of public monies. They are elected and appointed to serve the public interest and not that of the f’ing private banksters.

You are right again that you are being too optimistic here in this regard. This time it looks like it will be rammed through by Geithner.

Yves wrote about this on March 16 in her “Now It’s Official: Public Private Partnership to Overpay for Toxic Bank Assets” missive.

To quote YS: “We have been saying from the first time the idea that Team Obama floated the idea of having a “public private partnership” buy toxic bank assets, that it was merely a very costly way to disguise overpayment.”

YS was tipped off to the developing story by a reader. According to an email by UBS’ Andy Lees, the public-private bad bank “deal would have two subsidies: first to the investors to let the pay more for the assets that their current market prices, second, further capital contributions to the banks to allow them to take a haircut on their marks. That would allow for a deal to be done at prices somewhere between the banks’ inflated marks and the current market prices.”

Yves assessed the developing rot as follows: “This is billions to avoid price discovery, which is what it needed to assess the magnitude of the problem, attract private capital, and do triage on sick financial firms.”

So, if things go Geithner’s way, the US Treasury will have sold the American public down the river the again.

This transfer of wealth by the US Treasury is an act of criminal theft, for which the US Treasury ought to be indicted by the US AG.

But that ain’t gonna happen. So blow a kiss and wave Buh-Bye to hundreds of billions more of taxpayer dollars.

Anonymous says:

Ranchers vs. the free market

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96jan/rancher/rancher.htm

Anonymous says:

I am so pleased to see the assholes in the MSM awaken with poignoint criticism of the new administration. Who knew what and when did they no it ?

After 8 years of sitting in the corner jerking off while Nero burned down the country, they choose to focus on why AIG issued bonuses. Meanwhile, the lapdogs create the diversion while their owners rob the country blind.

Let’s repair the damage caused by media concentration while we fix everything else that has been destroyed since January 1981.

Sandi Rubinspan says:

from James Galbraithe:

According to the O’Bama economic team:

“The CBO estimates that because of the multiplier effect, two dollars of new public spending produces about three dollars of new output.”

I think this is possible, if, the cash goes to working or unemployed families. And, America stops mindlessly buying imported goods. This is difficult because Walmart’s plantation captilism strategy has held the day since January 1981.

If the money goes to the wealthy, like the Republicans believe it should, the stimulus will be zero.

Anonymous says:

Another caption could be, “Go F— Yourself!”

Don says:

Lets not pit wolves against coyotes. I often see coyotes, even in my back yard (40 acres), and they are harmless (unless they lose their fear, in which case they can be troublesome, so I try to keep them fearful). Anyway, cattle and sheep do considerable damage to soils, flora, riparian areas, etc.