Category Archives: Banana republic

Announcing (Actually, Confirming) Our Focus on the CBO’s Dubious Models and Political Bias

We’ve been writing about abuses of power and process at the Congressional Budget Office and will be ramping up our coverage further now that ranking member Bernie Sanders has a new team at the Budget Committee, which among other things supervises the CBO. And the CBO is going to be the subject of a major political fight over how it prepares its estimates of the economic and fiscal impact of pending legislation. As we’ll discuss below, Republicans plan to mandate that the CBO use something called dynamic scoring, which has the effect of making tax cuts look far more beneficial to the economy than they are, by effectively claiming that tax cuts boost growth, which then boosts tax receipts. It would effectively institutionalize the Laffer curve, which has been widely and repeatedly debunked. As troubling as this development is, there’s already a lot not to like in how the CBO operates.

Lawyers as Crime Enablers: Maine Bar Counsel Punts on Sanctioning Foreclosure Attorneys for Bogus Affidavits

Robosigners and the foreclosure mill attorneys who worked with them filed millions of bogus affidavits. So where are the disbarments?

Poroshenko Makes Battle of Donetsk Airport Precondition for New $50 Billion Bailout – Ukrainians Repelled in the Battle of Davos

The machinations over the next round of funding in Ukraine are wild. No one, particularly the US, wants to fund Ukraine and debt default looks likely, yet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is demanding a huge amount of additional funds. Soros is trying to end run the IMF, albeit with not much success so far.

Ilargi: Shadow Boxing and Bogus Crisis Triumphalism

The most that officialdom seems willing to do to deal with the crisis is messaging that it is over. Most people can tell how well that is working.

Nisman’s Suspicious Death Is Tearing Argentina Apart

Argentina is once again making international headlines, but this time it had nothing to do with vultures or dollars or defaults.

New Zealand’s Cathy Odgers and Fraud Stock HCI Hamilton: the Denouement

GXG Markets seem to agree with me about the apparent connection between Cathy Odgers’ Pacific Fiduciaries and an exceedingly obvious boiler room fraud, HCI Hamilton.

Fed Testimony in AIG Bailout Trial: If It Walks Like Perjury and Quacks Like Perjury…

One of the most striking things about the testimony in the AIG bailout trial is the degree to which Fed officials play fast and loose with the truth. And I don’t mean the normal CEO version of having no memory of events that are inconvenient and very detailed recollections of things that boost their case. I mean statements that are flat out false.

Is the TransPacific Partnership Being Brought Back From the Dead?

With a new Republican Congress, and Obama himself a Republican who occasionally wears Democratic clothing, the Administration is making noise that the TransPacific Partnership and its ugly sister, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, are moving forward in a serious way.

But the Administration tried that sort of messaging last year to keep up a sense of inevitability about these regulation-gutting, mislabeleed trade deals, when reality was very different. So where do things stand?

Slimin’ Jamie Dimon Tells Howlers About Persecution of Banks, “Fortress Balance Sheet”

Jamie Dimon seems to think if he can tell his Big Lies long enough, he’ll be believed. In reality, the only ones who will buy his blather are his fellow members of the elite banker looting classes and their hired help.

Dimon’s latest opportunity to play Ministry of Truth came in an analysts’ call last week, when he tried presenting JP Morgan and banks generally as “under assault”. This was so patently ridiculous that it quickly elicited the scorn it deserved.

First Step in Republican Campaign Against Bank Reform: HR 37 Passed in House

Republicans moved forward their first chess piece in their effort to gut already weak financial reform by passing HR 37 in the House.

Republicans Launch Another Wall Street Gimmie: HR 185, the “Tie Regulators in Knots” Act

The Republicans are not wasting any time in their ongoing campaign to make sure nothing stands in the way of Wall Street’s rapacious quest for more profits.

Senator Warren and America Win in a Skirmish in a Long Struggle Against Wall Street’s Coup

There is an excellent indicator that Senator Warren’s successful effort to block the appointment of Antonio Weiss, an Obama Wall Street bundler, to a senior Treasury position while merely a skirmish was an important accomplishment. The financial media that pander most slavishly to the Wall Street and the City of London’s CEOs is enraged at Warren’s success. The headline in the UK’s Business Insider reveals their angst “Elizabeth Warren Wins, The Treasury Loses.” The article doesn’t try very hard to support that headline with facts because there is no real case to support the claim.

“A number of former Treasury officials thought Warren was way out of line, and that Weiss’ experience was perfect for the position he was being nominated for.

The White House stood by its nominee throughout, stating last month, “This is somebody who has very good knowledge of the way that the financial markets work, and that is critically important.”

No argument on that here.”

Let’s begin with logic. There’s no logical way to declare that “Treasury lost” without knowing who else is willing to take the position of Under Secretary for Domestic Finance. No one thinks President Obama selected Weiss on the merits. He was selected because he bundled Wall Street campaign contributions for Obama’s campaigns. Treasury does not “win” when we appoint such people – Wall Street wins. We have no way of knowing whether Obama will select someone for the position who is better or worse than Weiss. The Undersecretary position is prestigious enough that we know that Obama has the ability to appoint hundreds of people who would like to take the position and are better qualified than Weiss. As a matter of logic, therefore, the authors could not support their claim.

The authors also don’t seem to have felt they could even try to make a case for their claim. They simply quote authority rather than reasoning. Their effort unintentionally made Warren’s opponents look bad. Consider the extraordinary arrogance of the statement “A number of former Treasury officials thought Warren was way out of line.” A U.S. Senator who is a member of Treasury’s oversight committee is completely “in line” to oppose nominees. Warren obviously did not oppose Weiss for partisan reasons. She opposed him on the merits. Weiss does not have a strong background for the skill sets required for the Undersecretary position. Again, no one can claim with a straight face that Obama selected Weiss on the merits. Of course, the same thing was true of many of the Treasury officials who think it is “way out of line” for Senators not to rubberstamp political reward-style appointments of Wall Street bundlers.

The best that the White House could come up with was that Weiss “has very good knowledge of the way that the financial markets work.” That description fits about one million Americans.

Conclusion

Warren has given Obama a golden opportunity – a “do over.” Obama can appoint someone who has a “very good knowledge of the way that the financial markets work” – and a passion for changing how they work in order to end the Wall Street culture of corruption and create radically improved markets based on integrity and service to investors with radically reduced profits. Obama could pick someone good for America, not “Treasury” and its Wall Street overseers. It is “critically important” that the financial markets be restored to a condition in which they aid Main Street and small investors rather than acting as parasites and predators.

At this juncture, the White House is signaling its continued opposition to serious reform.

“‘We continue to believe that Mr. Weiss is an extremely well-qualified individual, who is committed to the policy goals of this Administration and firmly supports the Administration’s policies on fostering economic growth and supporting our middle class. We are pleased that he has accepted the role of counselor to the Treasury secretary.’”

The administration continues its policy of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity to openly side with the American people (all of them, not simply “our middle class”) and demand the end of the corrupt culture of Wall Street. Warren has given Obama a priceless opportunity for a “do over.” No one expects Obama to do the right thing on the appointment, but Warren is doing the right thing by giving Obama a new the chance to do the right thing.

Elizabeth Warren Takes a Scalp: Antonio Weiss Withdraws from Nomination for #3 Position at Treasury

As readers may recall, Elizabeth Warren blasted the Administration’s nomination of a Lazard executive and senior mergers & acquisitions banker Antonio Weiss to the number three Treasury psot, assistant secretary for domestic finance. Warren’s grounds for objecting to Weiss were straightforward: his experience was no fit for the requirements of his proposed Treasury role. On top of that, he had been involved in and therefore profited from acquisitions called inversions that Treasury opposes because they reduce the taxes paid by the acquirer, which uses the acquired company to move its headquarters to a lower-tax jurisdiction.

Today Weiss withdrew as a candidate for the Treasury position.

Bill Black: Obama’s Vain Search for a TPP “Legacy”

Yves here. This post confirms what readers know all to well, that Obama will use every opportunity to sell out the middle class to corporate interests.

One thing to bear in mind is that opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and its ugly sister, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, do not split on simply party lines. This fall, when Obama was unable to get enough votes to get “fast track” approval, which the Executive Branch uses to force an up-down vote on a final trade deal, denying Congress the opportunity to influence its contents, whip counts showed that nearly 40 Republicans in the House were prepared to join Democrats in opposing it. How the numbers would break now is an open question, but that means it is worth your time and effort to call your Congressman and let them know you are firmly opposed to these toxic trade deals.