Former Deutsche Bank Employee Claims Bank Took Big Libor Bets During Crisis Because It Could Influence Rates
The Wall Street Journal has an exclusive story based on a whistleblower leak, apparently with supporting transaction records.
Read more...Author Archives: Yves Smith
Links 1/9/13
Schadenfreude Alert: With or Without AIG’s Help, Hank Greenberg Plans to Torture Treasury and Geithner
Never underestimate the greed of a billionaire. But I have to say separately that I will thoroughly enjoy the pigfight between former AIG chief Hank Greenberg’s C.V. Starr (now the biggest shareholder in AIG) versus the Federal government over the rescue of AIG. Any cost and embarrassment that the Administration suffers will be the direct result of the Bush-Obama policies of being concerned only about saving financial players rather than meting out any punishments, and for being incompetent negotiators.
Read more...Eric Zuesse: Obama Administration Lies, Then Covers Up, to Minimize BP Liabilities for Deepwater Horizon Disaster
By Eric Zuesse, an investigative historian and the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the Federal Government has refused to investigate why it vastly underestimated the amount of oil spilled in BP’s Deepwater Horizon huge blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, and thus refused to understand why the actual liability of BP will never be able to be estimated accurately, for calculating BP’s penalties and compensation-payments.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: The Origins of Neoliberalism, Part I – Hayek’s Delusion
By Philip Pilkington, a writer and research assistant at Kingston University in London. You can follow him on Twitter @pilkingtonphil
It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying.
– Marcel Proust
Friedrich Hayek was an unusual character.
Read more...Links 1/8/12
$8.5 Billion Foreclosure Fraud Settlement: Yet Another Loss for Homeowners Touted as a Victory
It’s bad enough to see long suffering homeowners take it once again in the chin, thanks to the way the bank regulators prostrate themselves before their supposed charges. It adds insult to injury to see this type of ritualized sellout yet again presented as a boon for consumers.
The latest case study is the $8.5 billion foreclosure fraud settlement announced today.
Read more...Yes, Virginia, the Department of Justice Really Believes It has Been Tough on Corporate Fraud
At the instigation of reader Doug, I’m shedding light on a remarkably flattering assessment of the Department of Justice, as revealed by a clearly planted story at the Law.com blog. It’s not so much that this article (as offensive as it is) important in and of itself, but it serves to illustrate the phenomenon that folks at te M&A boutique Lazard (when it was the top expert in CEO psychopathy) called “believing your own PR”. This sort of thinking bears examining because it is widespread in both Corporate America and within the Beltway.
Read more...Bill Black: Why Neo-Liberals Need to Dismiss Latin Americans as “Idiots”
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from Benzinga
Alvaro Vargas Llosa (AVL) co-authored the Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot with two other journalists. He revisited the subject with an article in 2007 entitled “The Return of the Idiot.”
AVL derides young Latin Americans as idiots, claiming that “they suppress the notion that predation and vindictiveness are wrong.” That claim fails because stopping “predation and vindictiveness” is what drives young Latin American progressives.
Read more...Links 1/7/12
Debunking (Yet Another) Scaremongering New York Times Op Ed on Social Security
Some readers were decidedly unhappy about a New York Times op-ed over the weekend by Gary King and Samir Soneji that argued the need to reform Social Security was even more urgent than the catfood futures sellers thought because people are going to live longer than the budget mavens assume. Given the op-ed space limits, the authors couldn’t supply much in the way of backup for their views, but the argument was that improvements in longevity due to the decline in smoking and improved cardiovascular health were not adequately reflected in the data.
It’s not clear that we should take this forecast all that seriously.
Read more...SEC Gives JP Morgan and Other Big Banks License to Manipulate Commodities
An SEC action that appears likely to do considerable harm to companies and individuals in the US and abroad appears to have gone completely unnoticed, save for an important piece in The New Republic by Linda Khan.
Read more...Links 1/6/12
New York Times Article Tells Big Lies on Impact of Fiscal Cliff Deal on Rich v. Ordinary Americans
If the media was licensed, the New York Times story, “After Fiscal Cliff Deal, Tax Code May Be the Most Progressive Since 1979,” would be grounds for disbarment. I flagged the piece as a Big Lie in comments yesterday, and figured that since anyone who was either old enough to have been paying taxes in the 1980s or had minimal Google skills could ascertain its claims were nonsense, that it would be debunked elsewhere. Instead, it was apparently tweeted actively by soi-disant liberals on Saturday.
Read more...Eric Zuesse: Understanding President Obama’s Strategy to Force Cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (Updated)
By Eric Zuesse, an investigative historian and the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
In order to be able to understand the current debt-limit battle in Washington, here is the essential historical background….
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