Author Archives: Yves Smith

Taibbi on How Wall Street is Looting Public Pension Funds

You must go, pronto, and read Matt Taibbi’s latest expose, on how hedge funds are plundering public pension funds, meaning pension funds managed on behalf of government employees like policemen, sanitation workers, and teachers. Taibbi describes how a concerted PR campaign has made workers the scapegoats for large pension shortfalls when in fact public officials and unscrupulous financiers (both through their machinations with these funds and via damage done by the global financial crisis) are the real perps.

The Incredible Shrinking Internet

Yves here. The state of pricing and service levels for the Internet in the US is a disgrace that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. But not to worry. The pipeline providers are scheming as to how to wring even more out of customers.

Links 9/26/13

The Fat Lady Has Yet to Sing for Dimon and JP Morgan

I thought I was late to write about JP Morgan’s $920 million multi-regulator settlement last week on the London Whale, but breathless news of a possible $11 billion settlement of mortgage-related liabilities has pushed the bank and its chief back under the hot lights.

Gaius Publius: Climate Crisis: Why We’re on Track for 7°C Warming or Greater by 2100

If we don’t “stop now” — meaning, hit the carbon brake hard and stop the carbon car — we risk going over a cliff whose edge could be as near as five to ten years away.

Yanis Varoufakis: No Signal – An Intimate, Personal History of ERT

Yves here. Varoufakis’ post may seem a bit off topic for this blog, but he has provided a history of censorship in Greece as seen through his personal relationship with the recently-shuttered state broadcaster ERT. And that is a more useful reference point for Americans (and likely most Anglo-Saxon readers).

Links 9/25/13

Robert Reich, Inequality’s Intellectual Fraudster

Now it may seem churlish to take on a prominent former government official making a star turn to publicize one of the most pressing social and political problems in America, namely, our ever widening levels of inequality. But in fact, Reich is not only selling the equivalent of patent medicine as the remedy but he’s even getting commissions from some of the snake-oil manufacturers.

Ilargi: From Tragedy To Travesty – Selling Off The Cradle Of Democracy

Is it merely a coincidence that the troika rode its Trojan horse into Athens again on the very day Angela Merkel went awfully close to an absolute majority in German elections? I’m sure it is. But it’s still very bad news for the Greeks, who now have their perhaps last chance to throw out the international financial system and decide their own fate, before most of their valuables have been sold off to foreign interests. Greece is where democracy started, and the way things are going, it may be where it will end as well.

Mathew D. Rose: Good News for Merkel is Not Necessarily Good News for Europe

The German word for election, Wahlen, comes from the word “choice”, and in this general election there wasn’t really one. And that’s too bad for the rest of Europe.

Links 9/24/13

Quelle Surprise! More Proof that the FCIC was a Whitewash, Thanks to Angelides and Born

It is unpleasant to face up to the fact that quite a few of the people who are lauded as courageous were not as brave as their PR would lead you to believe.

Why You Should Not Trust the Financials of Private Equity Owned Companies

Yesterday, we discussed how a family private equity firm Swift River, which is owned in part by Tony James, Blackstone’s head of private equity business, purchased a software company called iLevel Solutions rom Blackstone itself.

Today, we are going to examine iLevel in greater detail. We will see that this company is built from the ground up as vehicle to convince PE investors and the SEC that Blackstone and other PE firms have implemented robust financial controls over the companies they own. The reality, however, is the opposite