Pencil in this one -- hell, ink it -- in the stupidity column. This story appeared in today's Wall Street Journal, in the Money & Investing section.
U.K. Bank Group Lashes Out at 'Irresponsible' Reforms
LONDON -- The U.K.'s leading banking association ended 2009 with a bang on Wednesday, accusing authorities of impulsive reforms that could undermine the U.K. as a top financial center and crimp future economic growth.
In an outspoken end-of-year statement on Wednesday, Angela Knight, Chief Executive of the British Bankers' Association, lashed out at the sector's critics, saying U.K. banks were being unfairly blamed for causing most of the country's economic woes.
Now, let's see: the financial calamity and economic crisis arose from the actions of banks and investment banks, the taking of extreme risks for the potential large rewards, and only the rescue of the government saved the banks and the financial system from disaster -- so, what isn't fair?
U.K. banks know "they have few - if any - friends. They understand they are held responsible for the whole problem - even when this is manifestly not the case," she said.
Friends? Manifestly? What universe are these people living in?
Ms. Knight offered blunt criticism of U.K. authorities, which include the treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, saying they had rushed ahead with "irresponsible" reforms on remuneration and capital requirements that go beyond what others have done.
She criticized everyone, except herself and her industry, for, it must be assumed she thinks, they are wholly blameless.
"There are literally tens, if not thousands of British jobs directly and indirectly related to banking - bringing billions of pounds in tax income," she said. "Some of this is now at risk and, although many are well aware of it, decision makers increasingly either wish to ignore it or - even more dangerously - choose not to believe it."
Depends what one wants to believe.
The U.K. banking system has recovered some of its strength this year, with several leading institutions reporting large profits in recent months. However, there is still broad public anger over the financial crisis, which saw the U.K. government inject tens of billions of pounds worth of taxpayer money into major banks, like Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group and offer hundreds of billions of pounds worth of debt guarantees, loss insurance and liquidity support.
And the government is to blame for everything bad, even for the weather.
The banks have faced a particular outcry over bonus payments, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling imposing a 50% tax on bankers' bonuses above £25,000 earlier this month and other U.K. officials accusing bankers of having "tin ears" to significant reform. Nor have the opposition Conservatives offered much support for the sector with a general election due over the next six months.
Even the Tories realize that to defend bankers is a sure way to lose votes, and Tories need and want votes.
Meanwhile, FSA Chief Adair Turner has said U.K. authorities should consider whether some financial activities are socially useless and should be banned and questioned whether the banking system has simply grown too big.
Socially useless. Has quite a ring to it.
However in Wednesday's statement, Ms. Knight said authorities' demands that banks increase capital and liquidity reserves "have the potential to drastically reduce economic growth and restrict lending." Meanwhile she attacked as "stupid" the calls by some, including Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, for larger, more complex banks to be split up.
Have the potential to reduce lending? Is there enough lending being done? Stupid? It was stupid and irresponsible to allow such behemoths to come into being in the first place.
Ms. Knight said financial centers overseas "are waiting ready to pick up the business from the wreckage we will leave if we are stupid enough to discard a banking model which has served us well."
And she argued that many of the reforms needed in the U.K. banking system have already taken places, with new measures to prevent irresponsible lending, new regulations to clamp down on derivatives trading and a more aggressive approach from bank boards.
Enough change. Now, leave us alone (until the next time we need to be rescued).
Showing posts with label Stupidity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stupidity. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Rock-Star Chefs
This amazes me. My own infatuation with food shows has ended, and I am even getting tired of Bourdain, a thought which three years ago would have been heresy. Nonetheless, I still watch Bourdain and Zimmern. But this is incredible.
Live performance is a booming business for celebrity chefs, who themselves are a thriving niche of the entertainment world, straddling television, publishing and retail and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
It never occurred to me that there are concerts where the performers cook food.
Fans see live performances as a way to cement relationships that are already fairly intense: Many celebrity chefs are on television several times a day and connect to their audiences through their Web sites, blogs, books and branded food products. For some fans, the live events are primarily a chance to see up close a personality they've watched on TV for years. Most of the cooking demonstrations don't even offer audience members a taste of the food.
No food? Seems akin to going to a Springsteen concert and not hearing music.
Lisa Hechesky, a 36-year-old library associate in Nitro, W.Va., has spent more than $1,000 on hotel stays and tickets to see chef Alton Brown perform six times. Mr. Brown is the host of the Food Network's food-science show, "Good Eats," and the commentator on "Iron Chef America." Each August for the past three years, Ms. Hechesky has gone to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn., and paid about $300 for a package that includes a night's stay in the hotel and a cooking demonstration by Mr. Brown. At the most recent show, Mr. Brown demonstrated how to make a smoker out of a box, and made smoked trout.
Alton Brown? I turn the sound down when he comments.
In the coming months, chefs Jacques Pepin, Eric Ripert and Mr. Bourdain, along with Food Network personalities such as Emeril Lagasse, will perform in a three-act "Celebrity Chefs Series" in Miami. The show was developed by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, a venue that typically books performances by the Miami City Ballet and shows like "The Color Purple." Tickets cost $25 to $200, which buys a reception with the chefs and a taste of food made with their recipes but prepared by Johnson & Wales University culinary students and an instructor. The chefs' fees range from $35,000 to $50,000 per appearance, says the center's executive vice president, Scott Shiller.
The chefs don't cook? Springsteen having another singer do his songs?
Jacques Pepin, with Sissy Biggers, at the American Express Cook-Off in Aspen, Colo., last summer.
Ms. Deen is among the biggest stars on the live performing circuit. Deeana Healy, of Monte Sereno, Calif., paid about $2,000 last year to go on "Paula Cookin' at Sea," a cruise to Alaska organized by Greenville, S.C., travel agency CruiseOne. Ms. Healy's special wristband allowed her into areas of the ship where Ms. Deen attended cocktail parties, spoke on stage and signed cookbooks. Ms. Deen did little cooking during a demonstration, handing off the work to an assistant, Ms. Healy says, but adds that she didn't mind because she was there for Ms. Deen's personality, not a cooking course.
Ms. Deen says she often hands off the cooking to her husband or someone else on the stage so she can focus on having fun with the audience. "They can turn on the TV at least three times a day and watch me cook," she says.
Since getting to know Ms. Deen and her family on the cruise, "my heart aches when I watch [Ms. Deen's] show," Ms. Healy says. "I feel like I'm watching family."
Family? Ridiculous. Someone has a big, empty hole in her life.
Gina and Patrick Neely at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville.
Mr. Fieri's tour will start Nov. 17 in Lowell, Mass., and end a month later in Las Vegas. Average tickets will cost $35 to $40, though $250 buys a seat on stage and tastes of the food Mr. Fieri cooks. Ms. Bernstein says the agency is working with other celebrity chef clients to find time for them to go on tour.
Last week, as Mr. Fieri gave a cooking demonstration at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, N.Y., a fan threw a bra onto the stage. "I looked around and saw that the crowd went wild and I thought, 'Wow. This is rock 'n' roll,' " Mr. Fieri says.
Live performance is a booming business for celebrity chefs, who themselves are a thriving niche of the entertainment world, straddling television, publishing and retail and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
It never occurred to me that there are concerts where the performers cook food.
Fans see live performances as a way to cement relationships that are already fairly intense: Many celebrity chefs are on television several times a day and connect to their audiences through their Web sites, blogs, books and branded food products. For some fans, the live events are primarily a chance to see up close a personality they've watched on TV for years. Most of the cooking demonstrations don't even offer audience members a taste of the food.
No food? Seems akin to going to a Springsteen concert and not hearing music.
Lisa Hechesky, a 36-year-old library associate in Nitro, W.Va., has spent more than $1,000 on hotel stays and tickets to see chef Alton Brown perform six times. Mr. Brown is the host of the Food Network's food-science show, "Good Eats," and the commentator on "Iron Chef America." Each August for the past three years, Ms. Hechesky has gone to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn., and paid about $300 for a package that includes a night's stay in the hotel and a cooking demonstration by Mr. Brown. At the most recent show, Mr. Brown demonstrated how to make a smoker out of a box, and made smoked trout.
Alton Brown? I turn the sound down when he comments.
In the coming months, chefs Jacques Pepin, Eric Ripert and Mr. Bourdain, along with Food Network personalities such as Emeril Lagasse, will perform in a three-act "Celebrity Chefs Series" in Miami. The show was developed by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, a venue that typically books performances by the Miami City Ballet and shows like "The Color Purple." Tickets cost $25 to $200, which buys a reception with the chefs and a taste of food made with their recipes but prepared by Johnson & Wales University culinary students and an instructor. The chefs' fees range from $35,000 to $50,000 per appearance, says the center's executive vice president, Scott Shiller.
The chefs don't cook? Springsteen having another singer do his songs?
Jacques Pepin, with Sissy Biggers, at the American Express Cook-Off in Aspen, Colo., last summer.
Ms. Deen is among the biggest stars on the live performing circuit. Deeana Healy, of Monte Sereno, Calif., paid about $2,000 last year to go on "Paula Cookin' at Sea," a cruise to Alaska organized by Greenville, S.C., travel agency CruiseOne. Ms. Healy's special wristband allowed her into areas of the ship where Ms. Deen attended cocktail parties, spoke on stage and signed cookbooks. Ms. Deen did little cooking during a demonstration, handing off the work to an assistant, Ms. Healy says, but adds that she didn't mind because she was there for Ms. Deen's personality, not a cooking course.
Ms. Deen says she often hands off the cooking to her husband or someone else on the stage so she can focus on having fun with the audience. "They can turn on the TV at least three times a day and watch me cook," she says.
Since getting to know Ms. Deen and her family on the cruise, "my heart aches when I watch [Ms. Deen's] show," Ms. Healy says. "I feel like I'm watching family."
Family? Ridiculous. Someone has a big, empty hole in her life.
Gina and Patrick Neely at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville.
Mr. Fieri's tour will start Nov. 17 in Lowell, Mass., and end a month later in Las Vegas. Average tickets will cost $35 to $40, though $250 buys a seat on stage and tastes of the food Mr. Fieri cooks. Ms. Bernstein says the agency is working with other celebrity chef clients to find time for them to go on tour.
Last week, as Mr. Fieri gave a cooking demonstration at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, N.Y., a fan threw a bra onto the stage. "I looked around and saw that the crowd went wild and I thought, 'Wow. This is rock 'n' roll,' " Mr. Fieri says.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Jerk
Rush: 'We Need Segregated Buses'
Rush Limbaugh has, predictably, gone there: After the right ran wild with a story about an attack by a black student on a white student on a school bus—an attack that the police denied was racially motivated—Rush Limbaugh said, “We need segregated buses. … [I]n Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering 'yeah, right on, right on, right on.’” He went on to defend racism—or attack homosexuality, we’re not sure—by offering this gem: “If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?”
About time
Birthers Laughed Out of Court
Is the birther craze finally ending? An Army captain's lawsuit—claiming she could not "in good conscience" deploy to Iraq under the command of a foreign-born president—was thrown out of court Wednesday, and U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land pulled no punches in his critique of the “frivolous” lawsuit. “Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, simply saying something is so does not make it so,” Land said. He warned the officer’s lawyer, birther demagogue Orly Taitz, that she would face sanctions if she filed any more birther suits. Land held that Capt. Connie Rhodes had presented no credible evidence "that President Obama is ineligible to serve as president… Instead, she uses her complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the president is ‘an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.’” Turning the knife, Land finally noted that even a middle school student would notice the irony in “abandoning fundamental principles upon which our country was founded in order to purtportedly ‘protect and preserve’ those very principles” by treating the president so poorly.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A lack of civility
Passions run high in politics; that is a given. This year has seen a crescendo, culminating in a Representative heckling the President of the United States during a speech in the House chamber. Disagreeing is fine; it is even patriotic, given this nation's birth from dissidence. Yet the level of vitriol has reached bothersome levels.
Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, pictured here, yelled "You Lie!" at another point at the president, after Mr. Obama asserted that no illegal immigrants would receive benefits under his plan. Mr. Wilson later issued an apology to the president for what he called "this lack of civility."
That has become the way of doing things: first commit a transgression, then apologize. But heckling the President is really objectionable; it legitimizes all the anger that has been spewed, and the anger to come.
Rep. Wilson's 'Lie' Yell Boosts Rival In the hours following the South Carolina Republican's outburst during Obama's speech, his 2010 Democratic opponent has raised about $100,000.
Gail Collins always impresses me with her insight. To wit: This was when Obama said illegal immigrants would not be covered by health care reform. It seemed like a pretty tame remark for so much disrespect, given all the recent uproar over the president’s alleged ability to brainwash elementary school students.
Sure, Obama talked the fiscally responsible talk last night. But he cannot hold a candle to Baucus and Chuck Grassley, the committee’s lead Republican. These guys are really, really, really concerned about balancing the budget. And that seems only fair since they were basically the ones who unbalanced it in the first place when they worked in splendid bipartisan concert in 2001 to pass George W. Bush’s first $1.6 trillion in tax cuts.
How is it that the very people who made the mess get to clean it up?
Slide Show
Obama's Health Care Speech
It’s always possible that the Republicans will realize that their virulent opposition is not doing the country any good, and at least be obstructionist in a more cheerful way. Although Wednesday night, when the TV cameras caught the House minority leader, John Boehner, he looked as though he had just swallowed a cough drop.
Yet look at the picture of the President surrounded by members of Congress: to the President's right is Senator McConnell, and, behind him, that tanned dude, that's Boehner. Guess he couldn't help himself.
Boehner got the day off to a fine start by telling reporters he expected the president would “try to put lipstick on this pig and call it something else.” It was a stunning development, suggesting that a new page in American politics was turning, one in which members of both parties could once again come together and toss around that lipstick-pig metaphor without being accused of a sexist attack on Sarah Palin.
Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, pictured here, yelled "You Lie!" at another point at the president, after Mr. Obama asserted that no illegal immigrants would receive benefits under his plan. Mr. Wilson later issued an apology to the president for what he called "this lack of civility."That has become the way of doing things: first commit a transgression, then apologize. But heckling the President is really objectionable; it legitimizes all the anger that has been spewed, and the anger to come.
Rep. Wilson's 'Lie' Yell Boosts Rival In the hours following the South Carolina Republican's outburst during Obama's speech, his 2010 Democratic opponent has raised about $100,000.
Gail Collins always impresses me with her insight. To wit: This was when Obama said illegal immigrants would not be covered by health care reform. It seemed like a pretty tame remark for so much disrespect, given all the recent uproar over the president’s alleged ability to brainwash elementary school students.
Sure, Obama talked the fiscally responsible talk last night. But he cannot hold a candle to Baucus and Chuck Grassley, the committee’s lead Republican. These guys are really, really, really concerned about balancing the budget. And that seems only fair since they were basically the ones who unbalanced it in the first place when they worked in splendid bipartisan concert in 2001 to pass George W. Bush’s first $1.6 trillion in tax cuts.
How is it that the very people who made the mess get to clean it up?
Slide ShowObama's Health Care Speech
It’s always possible that the Republicans will realize that their virulent opposition is not doing the country any good, and at least be obstructionist in a more cheerful way. Although Wednesday night, when the TV cameras caught the House minority leader, John Boehner, he looked as though he had just swallowed a cough drop.
Yet look at the picture of the President surrounded by members of Congress: to the President's right is Senator McConnell, and, behind him, that tanned dude, that's Boehner. Guess he couldn't help himself.
Boehner got the day off to a fine start by telling reporters he expected the president would “try to put lipstick on this pig and call it something else.” It was a stunning development, suggesting that a new page in American politics was turning, one in which members of both parties could once again come together and toss around that lipstick-pig metaphor without being accused of a sexist attack on Sarah Palin.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Exodus 20:3
As soon as the President returned from his Cairo trip this week, the Muslim rumors came out in full force. John Avlon on why 11 percent of Americans think Obama is Muslim.
Exodus 20:3 reads Thou shalt have no other gods before me. These geniuses are not only slandering the President, they are slandering Islam, describing it as having a false god. Twits.
Exodus 20:3 reads Thou shalt have no other gods before me. These geniuses are not only slandering the President, they are slandering Islam, describing it as having a false god. Twits.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Bill to allow loaded guns in parks
The Democratic-controlled Congress is moving to restore a Bush administration policy that allowed loaded guns in national parks. The Senate voted Tuesday to allow guns in national parks and wildlife refuges, and the House could follow suit as soon as Wednesday.
Loaded guns in national parks. Democratic-controlled chambers passing such legislation gives lie to the right-wing charge of a monolithic government.
The measure is included in a popular bill imposing new restrictions on credit card companies. Democratic leaders have said they hope to send a final version to the White House for the president's signature by week's end.
Perfect example of tit-for-tat, horse trading.
The Senate vote is a stark reversal from what many gun-control advocates expected when a federal judge blocked the Bush policy in March. The decision reinstated restrictions that had been in place since the Reagan administration. The rules severely restrict guns in the national parks, generally requiring them to be locked or stored.
Another example of Bush not being a Reagan Republican.
The Obama administration accepted the March 19 ruling, saying that the Interior Department would review the policy over the next several months.
Political calculation: why take on the NRA now? It will have to wait.
Never mind that Harry Reid hides behind "second amendment rights" to cover his ass for the upcoming Senate election campaign where he will seek re-election, and is currently in a not-ver-strong position, and that the NRA dissimulates it influence. Get this next one.
Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican, who inserted an amendment to the credit card bill that would allow concealed, loaded guns in parks and refuges, said the gun measure protects every American's Second Amendment rights and also protects the rights of states to pass laws that apply to their entire state, including public lands.
"Visitors to national parks should have the right to defend themselves in accordance with the laws of their states," Mr. Coburn said.
Huh? What threat is there that visitors need loaded, concealed weapons in national parks, and, if such threats exist,, isn't that a sad commentary on our parks and on the National Park Service?
Loaded guns in national parks. Democratic-controlled chambers passing such legislation gives lie to the right-wing charge of a monolithic government.
The measure is included in a popular bill imposing new restrictions on credit card companies. Democratic leaders have said they hope to send a final version to the White House for the president's signature by week's end.
Perfect example of tit-for-tat, horse trading.
The Senate vote is a stark reversal from what many gun-control advocates expected when a federal judge blocked the Bush policy in March. The decision reinstated restrictions that had been in place since the Reagan administration. The rules severely restrict guns in the national parks, generally requiring them to be locked or stored.
Another example of Bush not being a Reagan Republican.
The Obama administration accepted the March 19 ruling, saying that the Interior Department would review the policy over the next several months.
Political calculation: why take on the NRA now? It will have to wait.
Never mind that Harry Reid hides behind "second amendment rights" to cover his ass for the upcoming Senate election campaign where he will seek re-election, and is currently in a not-ver-strong position, and that the NRA dissimulates it influence. Get this next one.
Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican, who inserted an amendment to the credit card bill that would allow concealed, loaded guns in parks and refuges, said the gun measure protects every American's Second Amendment rights and also protects the rights of states to pass laws that apply to their entire state, including public lands.
"Visitors to national parks should have the right to defend themselves in accordance with the laws of their states," Mr. Coburn said.
Huh? What threat is there that visitors need loaded, concealed weapons in national parks, and, if such threats exist,, isn't that a sad commentary on our parks and on the National Park Service?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
G-20 Protesters Aiming at Wrong Target
And then there is the clueless.
Anti-capitalist protesters gathering in London for two days of demonstrations are missing the point. If there is one myth the credit crunch has surely exploded, it is that the financial system is a free market. The world is in a mess because the financial system was not capitalist enough.
I do believe he's serious.
True, the industry was deregulated to an extraordinary degree and politicians lost any stomach to stop excess as bubbles formed. But successive bailouts over many years also distorted the banking system to the point where real price signals were swamped. Nothing in the current global recovery proposals suggest this lesson has been learned.
He is serious.
In a capitalist system prices are set in the free market and providers of capital bear responsibility for their losses. Neither of these characteristics hold true of the banking system. The price of credit – the basic commodity of the financial system – was distorted first by implicit government guarantees to depositors and other providers of capital, and second by the tendency of governments to slash interest rates at the first sign of financial trouble.
But, is he delusional?
In a fully capitalist system, there would be no guarantees. The market would ensure banks did not become too big or too leveraged.
Huh?
Anti-capitalist protesters gathering in London for two days of demonstrations are missing the point. If there is one myth the credit crunch has surely exploded, it is that the financial system is a free market. The world is in a mess because the financial system was not capitalist enough.
I do believe he's serious.
True, the industry was deregulated to an extraordinary degree and politicians lost any stomach to stop excess as bubbles formed. But successive bailouts over many years also distorted the banking system to the point where real price signals were swamped. Nothing in the current global recovery proposals suggest this lesson has been learned.
He is serious.
In a capitalist system prices are set in the free market and providers of capital bear responsibility for their losses. Neither of these characteristics hold true of the banking system. The price of credit – the basic commodity of the financial system – was distorted first by implicit government guarantees to depositors and other providers of capital, and second by the tendency of governments to slash interest rates at the first sign of financial trouble.
But, is he delusional?
In a fully capitalist system, there would be no guarantees. The market would ensure banks did not become too big or too leveraged.
Huh?
Monday, March 23, 2009
Vote on Challenge to Evolution
Where is Clarence Darrow when we need him?
Rev. Carl W. Rohlfs of the University United Methodist Church in Austin, left, talks with Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller, right, Thursday in Austin. The State Board of Education is voting on science-curriculum standards on the teaching of evolution.
We're still debating evolution? Maybe we should make sure the earth really rotates around the sun, unless we're in danger of falling off the edge of the earth while navigating. Geez.
The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation.
"This is the most specific assault I've seen against evolution and modern science," said Steven Newton, a project director at the National Center for Science Education, which promotes teaching of evolution.
As Ralph Kiner once said about Casey Stengel, "if he were alive, he'd be turning over in his grave." This time it'd be Clarence Darrow.
Texas school board chairman Don McLeroy also sees the curriculum as a landmark -- but a positive one.
Dr. McLeroy believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago. If the new curriculum passes, he says he will insist that high-school biology textbooks point out specific aspects of the fossil record that, in his view, undermine the theory that all life on Earth is descended from primitive scraps of genetic material that first emerged in the primordial muck about 3.9 billion years ago.
Huh? Never mind the separation of church and state, but this is ridiculous.
He also wants the texts to make the case that individual cells are far too complex to have evolved by chance mutation and natural selection, an argument popular with those who believe an intelligent designer created the universe.
Of course he couldn't possibly see that complexity arose across vast ages. Nah. God did it.
The textbooks will "have to say that there's a problem with evolution -- because there is," said Dr. McLeroy, a dentist. "We need to be honest with the kids."
That's rich: let's be honest.
Polls show many Americans are skeptical of or confused by evolution; in a recent survey by Gallup, 39% said they believe the theory, 25% said they didn't, and 36% had no opinion.
What can one possibly say about that? Well, 4 of 10 believe in evolution, 1 in 4 don't, and a third are skeptical, dumb or indifferent.
Someone sent this cartoon to the Wall Street Journal discussion of this article and topic.
Rev. Carl W. Rohlfs of the University United Methodist Church in Austin, left, talks with Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller, right, Thursday in Austin. The State Board of Education is voting on science-curriculum standards on the teaching of evolution.
We're still debating evolution? Maybe we should make sure the earth really rotates around the sun, unless we're in danger of falling off the edge of the earth while navigating. Geez.
The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation.
"This is the most specific assault I've seen against evolution and modern science," said Steven Newton, a project director at the National Center for Science Education, which promotes teaching of evolution.
As Ralph Kiner once said about Casey Stengel, "if he were alive, he'd be turning over in his grave." This time it'd be Clarence Darrow.
Texas school board chairman Don McLeroy also sees the curriculum as a landmark -- but a positive one.
Dr. McLeroy believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago. If the new curriculum passes, he says he will insist that high-school biology textbooks point out specific aspects of the fossil record that, in his view, undermine the theory that all life on Earth is descended from primitive scraps of genetic material that first emerged in the primordial muck about 3.9 billion years ago.
Huh? Never mind the separation of church and state, but this is ridiculous.
He also wants the texts to make the case that individual cells are far too complex to have evolved by chance mutation and natural selection, an argument popular with those who believe an intelligent designer created the universe.
Of course he couldn't possibly see that complexity arose across vast ages. Nah. God did it.
The textbooks will "have to say that there's a problem with evolution -- because there is," said Dr. McLeroy, a dentist. "We need to be honest with the kids."
That's rich: let's be honest.
Polls show many Americans are skeptical of or confused by evolution; in a recent survey by Gallup, 39% said they believe the theory, 25% said they didn't, and 36% had no opinion.
What can one possibly say about that? Well, 4 of 10 believe in evolution, 1 in 4 don't, and a third are skeptical, dumb or indifferent.
Someone sent this cartoon to the Wall Street Journal discussion of this article and topic.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Republicans Look for a Reliever in Kentucky
Senator Jim Bunning has a focus on economic issues, but his demeanor sometimes draws more attention than his positions.
“When you’ve dealt with Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and Stan Musial,” he said, “the people I’m dealing with now are kind of down the scale.”
One of the entrenched narratives in American politics is the case of the guy who refuses to quit, even though a lot of people on his own team want him gone.
While the Democrats are preoccupied with Senator Roland W. Burris and his ties to a tainted Illinois governor, the Republicans are trying to rid themselves of Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the former baseball star who clearly has little use for some colleagues and party leaders, and who keeps exhibiting what one senator calls “behavior issues.”
I remember hearing that he was considered the stupidest Senator.
Key Republicans are gently (or not gently enough) trying to dissuade Mr. Bunning from seeking re-election in 2010 out of concern that his paltry fund-raising, declining approval ratings and irascible conduct have made him something between vulnerable and unelectable.
But in recent weeks, Mr. Bunning has shown no sign of stepping aside and delivered a string of incendiary pronouncements that have fed an impression that he is, to go with a baseball metaphor, a bit of a screwball.
If not stupid, weird, for sure.
In 2006, Time magazine named him one of the five worst senators in the country.
Well, there are four others, so he can take some solace for that.
“When you’ve dealt with Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and Stan Musial,” he said, “the people I’m dealing with now are kind of down the scale.”
One of the entrenched narratives in American politics is the case of the guy who refuses to quit, even though a lot of people on his own team want him gone.
While the Democrats are preoccupied with Senator Roland W. Burris and his ties to a tainted Illinois governor, the Republicans are trying to rid themselves of Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the former baseball star who clearly has little use for some colleagues and party leaders, and who keeps exhibiting what one senator calls “behavior issues.”
I remember hearing that he was considered the stupidest Senator.
Key Republicans are gently (or not gently enough) trying to dissuade Mr. Bunning from seeking re-election in 2010 out of concern that his paltry fund-raising, declining approval ratings and irascible conduct have made him something between vulnerable and unelectable.
But in recent weeks, Mr. Bunning has shown no sign of stepping aside and delivered a string of incendiary pronouncements that have fed an impression that he is, to go with a baseball metaphor, a bit of a screwball.
If not stupid, weird, for sure.
In 2006, Time magazine named him one of the five worst senators in the country.
Well, there are four others, so he can take some solace for that.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Governor Jindal, Rising G.O.P. Star, Plummets After Speech
Republicans have two ideas: anything President Obama offers is wrong, and cut taxes. It ain't flying. Here is the latest putz, er, duck, er, turkey, to fall flat.
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has been a rising star in the Republican Party, but his stock took a hit as he was roundly panned for his televised response to President Obama’s first speech to Congress on Tuesday night.
To choose, or accept, the assignment of speaking after this President is a fool's errand. Maybe the right man got it.
Conservative commentators were among the harshest critics, calling Mr. Jindal’s delivery animatronic, his prose “cheesy” and his message — that federal spending is not the answer to the nation’s economic problems — uninspired.
David Johnson, a Republican political strategist, faulted Mr. Jindal for telling a story about Harry Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish during Hurricane Katrina and who has been repeatedly accused of racial profiling, and for bringing up Hurricane Katrina at all, which Mr. Jindal cited as an example of the failure of big government.
“The one thing Republicans want to forget,” Mr. Johnson said, “is Katrina.”
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has been a rising star in the Republican Party, but his stock took a hit as he was roundly panned for his televised response to President Obama’s first speech to Congress on Tuesday night.
To choose, or accept, the assignment of speaking after this President is a fool's errand. Maybe the right man got it.
Conservative commentators were among the harshest critics, calling Mr. Jindal’s delivery animatronic, his prose “cheesy” and his message — that federal spending is not the answer to the nation’s economic problems — uninspired.
David Johnson, a Republican political strategist, faulted Mr. Jindal for telling a story about Harry Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish during Hurricane Katrina and who has been repeatedly accused of racial profiling, and for bringing up Hurricane Katrina at all, which Mr. Jindal cited as an example of the failure of big government.
“The one thing Republicans want to forget,” Mr. Johnson said, “is Katrina.”
Citigroup Chafes Under U.S. Overseers
Chutzpah? Defined.
A Wall Street Journal story details
The company has lost $27 billion in the last 15 months, has received $45 billion in cash from the Federal government, which is also guaranteeing $305 billion of the bad debt the company itself bought in its greed to make outsized profits, while neglecting to properly assess the risks involved in that strategy, and it is chafing under governmental oversight? The executives should be glad they still have jobs. And aren't in court as defendants for corporate malfeasance.
One person close to the company compared the government's role to the sword of Damocles, an ever-present evil hanging over their heads.
![[USA Inc.]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_thzl9mF2clp4BAKZ5_q1K7DjCTy5j2YD8EEam2dH8fmLvqsPb-lJMz6FvzV3ZuYj5f6xQ49rH1i4BO57TAhwxaqejYD3LClDpJPJLeJDssH3ehBOnPhSW9SNie6egwCza_4fOXIsGe28nQ6Wynjys=s0-d)
![[Raining Red Ink]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u_ZfltexDXT1xkUa6lBkDCbhVRIJ-wAVv0pMZSYvwAurM1_QzK8KCnu3Fq0krO-dn8_cM-ZX6uY8vfiTP2yHYOUFYc93hIZ6g7dOjb1H1uKlA6UkIVcruUfDFKd28WL6pRrASHiSvMwUSV6yM2005C=s0-d)
![[Citigroup]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sIwPBT5ueweZWi8-C5XyjCsjrJ4dzm_G7FwpK8EAkq59sOIFIVRSJ4VsMYjMHwRpJJw68GbcB_7JD8ZFTvW5BaVhdaouP7DqTmlB8qxWj8uSV-rmZROiUzc5u_9SoF67SiOfVPtlzifIoKvyywrVA6kg=s0-d)
A Wall Street Journal story detailsThe company has lost $27 billion in the last 15 months, has received $45 billion in cash from the Federal government, which is also guaranteeing $305 billion of the bad debt the company itself bought in its greed to make outsized profits, while neglecting to properly assess the risks involved in that strategy, and it is chafing under governmental oversight? The executives should be glad they still have jobs. And aren't in court as defendants for corporate malfeasance.
One person close to the company compared the government's role to the sword of Damocles, an ever-present evil hanging over their heads.
Citigroup Chafes Under U.S. Overseers
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By MONICA LANGLEY and DAVID ENRICH
In a recent phone call with a senior government official, Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Vikram Pandit revealed who's on top in the new world of American finance.
"Don't give up on us," Mr. Pandit said, pleading with the official not to push out top management. "Give us a chance to execute."
Mr. Pandit is on the verge of ceding yet more control to the government. Citigroup is in talks with federal officials about the U.S. taking greater ownership of the bank by converting its 7.8% stake of preferred shares to as much as 40% of Citigroup's common stock. Doing so would give the wobbling bank a desperately needed boost to its capital, but less control of its destiny.
Citigroup's request could also heighten political pressure to break up the financial titan, whose 1998 creation helped to dismantle the Depression-era law separating the banking and brokerage industries. For taxpayers, Citigroup's quest carries peril, because holders of common shares have the last claim to repayment in the event of a corporate liquidation.
Interviews with more than 30 banking-industry executives, regulators, government officials and others show that the U.S.-Citigroup relationship, one of the most important products of the American financial-system bailout, is off to a very rocky start.
Citigroup executives are attempting to strike a seemingly impossible balance: Run the business in a way that will please their new federal masters, but also help the bank rebound from $28 billion in losses over the past five quarters.
Former federal officials have dubbed Citigroup the "Death Star," comparing the bank's threat to the financial system with the planet-destroying super weapon in the "Star Wars" movies. Privately, in the words of one official, they regard the banking giant as "unmanageable."
Complicating the issue is the government's back-and-forth between bouts of micromanaging the banking giant and periods of ignoring it. In trying to be neither an active nor a passive investor, the U.S. is directing the business without a firm strategy or particular expertise.
Government Micromanagement of Citigroup
4:06WSJ's David Enrich discusses the latest on Citigroup, which is in talks with federal officials about the U.S. taking greater ownership of the bank. Plus, he tells colleague Dennis Berman how Citigroup is chafing under government leadership, and sometimes, its lack of leadership.
Government and the Citi
Getty Images
![[SB123551556728563761]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uKC7rHB2wNicjeCljLHC4G0YZ-PAL6Pda1_YfBoH4HjwLOpR9xW3CvgCtya6RnTjmdTvi0XzsSCMPFm7zZs2oFJBCEjzf7_TXYJ0AIgkH8vK9tgYcdlTwuS5I8RbnKBHAGAfG5ZTyY4j9uMGLlUUlC=s0-d)
Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup, testifies on the TARP funds before the House Financial Services Committee at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
Central to the confusion: There's no one individual or entity in charge of the federal oversight of Citigroup.
That's because banks like Citigroup are regulated by a patchwork of agencies including the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The Treasury Department also has oversight because it's the one that is injecting government capital into the banks. And members of Congress, who initially approved all that money, have their own stake in how things play out. All these interested parties have been handing Citigroup a jumble of sometimes conflicting orders, advice and critiques.
Officials with the Fed, for instance, informed Citigroup executives they have "observer rights" that entitle them to participate in the bank's board meetings. Though the government hasn't joined in so far, the fact that it might has led some Citigroup executives to complain privately that the U.S. now has "unlimited power" over the bank. One person close to the company compared the government's role to the sword of Damocles, an ever-present evil hanging over their heads.
A Citigroup spokeswoman said: "It has always been the case that when regulators ask to make a presentation to our board, we accommodate them."
On Tuesday, Mr. Pandit was in Washington for meetings with federal regulators and other officials, as questions loomed about his future and that of the company's board. Citigroup bankers sought to calm nervous clients this week. Some are worried about losing business during the uncertainty.
The federal government's new role in American finance has been staggering. In the past six months, the U.S. has injected nearly $200 billion into 419 banking institutions; guaranteed at least $420 billion in potential losses at multiple banks; directed several financial firms to merge; and has outlined plans to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in bad mortgages and other bad assets from banks. The U.S. also has agreed to prop up the commercial-paper market by buying more than $1 trillion of companies' short-term debt.
Overhaul of Bailout
Besides the Citigroup move, the government's latest to-do list includes an overhaul of its $150 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. Starting this week, banking regulators will conduct "stress tests" to gauge the health of the nation's top 20 banks. And in the coming weeks, the government plans to orchestrate a restructuring of the nation's auto industry, after loaning a total of $17.4 billion to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, both of which are now seeking billions more.
Citigroup's bid for yet more help is sure to complicate a partnership already strained by miscommunications and missteps. Since the government shored up the embattled bank with fresh capital over the past few months, it has issued some broad directives: ordering Citigroup to sell assets to raise money and curtail risky investments, urging a reshuffle of its board, and warning that if it needs more taxpayer money, management may be booted.
But even as the government has ensured Citigroup's survival for now, bank executives say they have been left to read tea leaves about how to implement federal directives.
U.S. officials say Citigroup's problems are wide-ranging, presenting issues for various governmental agencies -- all of which are also engaged in handling problems involving other banks and the economy. Some officials say they have given Citigroup executives broad outlines of what they'd like the company to do. They say thus far it's not been the government's position to give Citigroup a specific playbook about how to put directives in place. The current talks for federal assistance, however, could result in more direct orders on how Citigroup should proceed.
Regarding the government's relationship with Citigroup, a company spokeswoman said in a statement: "We maintain constant and open communication with all of our regulators."
In recent weeks, Citigroup executives have reached out to various government officials for guidance -- with little to show for their effort. Last week, Mr. Pandit met with Lawrence Summers, the government's chief economic adviser, in the White House's West Wing. Mr. Summers made clear that he wouldn't discuss Citigroup specifically, and Mr. Pandit emerged from the meeting with no better idea of where the Obama administration stands in managing ties with the big bank.
Amid the anxiety, Edward Kelly, a senior investment banker and one of Mr. Pandit's closest confidants, used his personal misfortune to ease tension within Citigroup. After a trying visit to Washington to brief regulators, Mr. Kelly returned to his Baltimore home tired -- and soon woke up to a screeching smoke alarm. Finding flames in his home office and working to halt the fire from spreading, Mr. Kelly burned his right hand and arm so badly that doctors kept him home for several days to prevent infection.
In a flurry of phone calls while he was home recuperating, Mr. Kelly joked to colleagues that he was putting out fires at both his home and his company.
Spotty Communications
Communications from government officials, meanwhile, have been spotty. Friday afternoon, after the bank's shares had closed the week at an 18-year low of $1.95, top executives reached out to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the New York Fed. They wanted to discuss Citigroup's proposal to substantially enlarge the government's ownership stake. The conversations were constructive, but they couldn't progress much until they heard from Treasury, the government arm that had invested in Citigroup's preferred stock and therefore would need to bless converting that stake into common shares.
Through the weekend, Citigroup didn't hear from Treasury officials. Then on Sunday evening, Mr. Pandit's phone rang. It was Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, calling with a message: "I think we just need to do something." Mr. Geithner was short on specifics, but said he was ready to entertain Citigroup's idea of converting a big chunk of the government's preferred stock into common shares.
The government's ongoing pressure to slim down the company has forced Citigroup executives to consider a range of unwanted options. They agreed in January to spin off the Smith Barney brokerage unit into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley after insisting for years that they wouldn't part with the business. The bank has also split itself into two parts, with the goal of selling additional assets and businesses.
Baltimore Business Journal
Citigroup investment banker Edward Kelly
Executives are now wrestling with the possibility of shedding the company's lucrative Banamex consumer-banking unit in Mexico, even as Citigroup officially insists that is unlikely to happen. Following his meeting with Mr. Summers last week, Mr. Pandit flew to Mexico City, trying to calm Banamex employees who were convinced that the U.S. government would force Citigroup to sell the business.
Citigroup's every move is now under the public microscope. In late January, as news was about to break about Citigroup's plans to buy a $42 million corporate jet, Mr. Pandit huddled with Citigroup executives in the firm's Manhattan headquarters. Mr. Pandit suggested the company simply cancel the order to minimize the bad publicity.
Lewis Kaden, a Citigroup vice chairman, resisted, arguing that the company needed to carefully word any public statement about the jet in order to avoid a fee from the plane's manufacturer. An internal debate ensued over how best to handle the matter, and the lack of a resolution transformed it into a politically potent multiday news story.
Federal officials were apoplectic. President Barack Obama branded Citigroup's plans to buy the plane "outrageous." Treasury officials phoned Citigroup executives and pressured them to scrap the order, which they did.
The tongue-lashing didn't stop there. Mr. Pandit received an earful from Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D., N.Y.). At a meeting in her Manhattan office, Rep. Velazquez scolded Mr. Pandit for not canceling the jet order sooner and suggested that he fire the Citigroup public-relations team for "bungling" the situation. Rep. Velazquez couldn't be reached for comment.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) also met with Mr. Pandit after the plane debacle. "The dynamics are changing," he told Mr. Pandit. "Brace yourself for more accountability and stricter oversight. No more big executive pay, no more frills."
Bloomberg News
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
The scrutiny has Citigroup executives second-guessing everything, right down to the fresh-baked cookies offered at a recent corporate retreat in Armonk, N.Y. Seated in plush chairs around a three-story stone fireplace, some attendees wondered aloud if the cookies themselves might be portrayed as a frivolous use of taxpayer money.
In the wake of the airplane flap, federal regulators have begun demanding more detailed information from Citigroup about corporate expenses and individual departments' operating budgets. The government is specifically requesting information about expenses for any lavish parties or other corporate events.
The detailed nature of such requests startled some Citigroup executives, who weren't expecting to fork over such granular information. The company has responded by preemptively canceling several events, including a private-investor conference in Miami slated for April, where hotel rooms for hundreds of people were already reserved. A few groups of Citigroup bankers had planned to take top clients on ski trips in the Rocky Mountains; those plans were shelved. At the Inter-American Development Bank's annual conference, scheduled for March in Colombia, Citigroup won't be hosting its normal after-hours parties.
Citigroup officials are learning the hard way to play politics. Anticipating the political storm he would incite by flying to the nation's capital by private plane, Mr. Pandit now hops on commercial shuttle flights for the frequent trips to Washington. Other executives travel by Amtrak train.
Amid pressure to shake up its board, Citigroup initially suggested it would begin making director changes at the April shareholder meeting. The Fed rejected that, pushing lead director Richard Parsons to act sooner. The Fed has also frowned upon some potential nominees that Citigroup has informally pitched to the agency, saying Washington would prefer "tough-minded independent thinkers."
Though the company has lined up director candidates that it wants the Fed to approve, the candidates haven't agreed to the posts, waiting to see what happens to Citigroup's management, operations and future.
Citigroup's guessing game also extended to congressional hearings held earlier this month. Legislators pounded Mr. Pandit and other bank executives for putting their institutions in jeopardy. As Mr. Pandit prepared for the hearings, some Citigroup executives urged him to make two concessions: apologizing for the corporate-jet fiasco and agreeing not to get paid until Citigroup returns to profitability. Others argued that such conciliatory gestures would validate unfair criticisms of the company. Mr. Pandit ultimately made both concessions at the hearing.
Thawing Markets
Meantime, Citigroup has to stop the financial bleeding. Mr. Pandit last month told senior executives that the first quarter is essentially do-or-die: Citigroup needs to turn a profit to persuade the government and investors that it's viable.
Last week, Citigroup officials privately told regulators it had a profitable January. Credit and stock markets thawed that month, benefiting banks across the industry. "We've got to prove that our core business can make money," Mr. Pandit recently told top aides.
With the economy in a tailspin, some executives privately voiced skepticism that Mr. Pandit's goal of a profitable first quarter would be attainable. The Fed recently barred Citigroup from making acquisitions and reinforced restrictions on the bank's use of capital.
In a recent meeting with investment bankers, Citigroup's investment-banking chief, John Havens, was pushing his deputies to further streamline operations in order to reduce costs. One executive asked whether the changes needed to be made quickly. The question "is typical Citi," Mr. Havens replied, suggesting that decisions at the company take too long, according to a person at the meeting. "That's why Geithner is so intolerant with us these days," Mr. Havens told the bankers.
Now, gallows humor is setting in. This week, some employees noted that they always thought that working for Citigroup -- with its unwieldy bureaucracy and clashing fiefdoms -- was like working for the government anyway.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Murderer's Row?
The chief executives of banks that have received federal-government aid testified Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee, including, from left: Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, James Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase, Robert Kelly of Bank of New York Mellon, Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America, Ronald Logue of State Street, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and John Stumpf of Wells Fargo.
These guys got grilled, and deservedly so. And about time that bankers heard the wrath of the people.
Chief executives at eight banks and securities firms that have gotten $165 billion in federal aid were barraged by U.S. lawmakers, who showed little patience for a charm offensive aimed at defusing ire over pay and lending. During Wednesday's seven-hour hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) referred to the CEOs, sitting in alphabetical order at a long table, as "captains of the universe."When Bank of America Corp. Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lewis responded, "corporals of the universe," Rep. Waters looked at him blankly. "Did you raise your credit-card rates?" she demanded.
I am not often impressed with Representative Waters, but she was spot on this time.
It was a typical moment in a hearing that underscored how big-bank CEOs have become lightning rods for the anger and misery fueled by falling home prices, rising unemployment and the deepening recession. From Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein to John Stumpf of Wells Fargo & Co., the eight executives endured relentless questions that included being forced to recite their salary, bonus and stock compensation in a hearing meant to assess the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Bad, bad boys.
In 2006 and 2007, the eight executives got total compensation of $401 million, according to securities filings. The combined stock-market value of their companies has plunged 69% since the Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked in October 2007.
Wealthy bad boys.
Anticipating tough questions about pay and perks, James Dimon, chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., took the Acela, Amtrak's high-speed train, and stayed overnight at Washington's Park Hyatt hotel. He bumped into Bank of New York Mellon Corp. CEO Robert Kelly at breakfast. Mr. Blankfein and John Mack, Morgan Stanley's chief executive, flew commercial flights, but Mr. Blankfein stayed at a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Mr. Pandit spent hours cramming for the hearing.
Well, at least they realized that taking a corporate jet would have been a bad move. A room in the Hyatt goes for $439 - $499 (an Ambassador suite goes for about $3,800). The Ritz Carlton advertises itself as a luxury hotel. Its rates start at $549. Guess Lloyd still doesn't think he's gotta slum it.
"You come to us today on your bicycles, after buying Girl Scout cookies and helping out Mother Teresa, telling us: 'We're sorry. We won't do it again,' "said Rep. Michael Capuano (D., Mass.). "America doesn't trust you anymore."
Good line. Trust? You kiddin'?
These guys got grilled, and deservedly so. And about time that bankers heard the wrath of the people.
Chief executives at eight banks and securities firms that have gotten $165 billion in federal aid were barraged by U.S. lawmakers, who showed little patience for a charm offensive aimed at defusing ire over pay and lending. During Wednesday's seven-hour hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) referred to the CEOs, sitting in alphabetical order at a long table, as "captains of the universe."When Bank of America Corp. Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lewis responded, "corporals of the universe," Rep. Waters looked at him blankly. "Did you raise your credit-card rates?" she demanded.
I am not often impressed with Representative Waters, but she was spot on this time.
It was a typical moment in a hearing that underscored how big-bank CEOs have become lightning rods for the anger and misery fueled by falling home prices, rising unemployment and the deepening recession. From Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein to John Stumpf of Wells Fargo & Co., the eight executives endured relentless questions that included being forced to recite their salary, bonus and stock compensation in a hearing meant to assess the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Bad, bad boys.
In 2006 and 2007, the eight executives got total compensation of $401 million, according to securities filings. The combined stock-market value of their companies has plunged 69% since the Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked in October 2007.
Wealthy bad boys.
Anticipating tough questions about pay and perks, James Dimon, chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., took the Acela, Amtrak's high-speed train, and stayed overnight at Washington's Park Hyatt hotel. He bumped into Bank of New York Mellon Corp. CEO Robert Kelly at breakfast. Mr. Blankfein and John Mack, Morgan Stanley's chief executive, flew commercial flights, but Mr. Blankfein stayed at a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Mr. Pandit spent hours cramming for the hearing.
Well, at least they realized that taking a corporate jet would have been a bad move. A room in the Hyatt goes for $439 - $499 (an Ambassador suite goes for about $3,800). The Ritz Carlton advertises itself as a luxury hotel. Its rates start at $549. Guess Lloyd still doesn't think he's gotta slum it.
"You come to us today on your bicycles, after buying Girl Scout cookies and helping out Mother Teresa, telling us: 'We're sorry. We won't do it again,' "said Rep. Michael Capuano (D., Mass.). "America doesn't trust you anymore."
Good line. Trust? You kiddin'?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Execs grabbed big bucks just before bailout
Guess who? What a bunch of idiots.
In all, Merrill doled out $3.6 billion in bonuses just days before Bank of America finalized its deal to buy the collapsing firm - with the help of $45 billion in taxpayer money.
Greed doesn't cover it. Arrogance.
Cuomo's investigators have been particularly interested in Merrill's rush to pay the perks in December, a month before the usual January bonus timetable.
This is more than arrogant; it borders on the illegal.
One beneficiary was Peter Kraus, a Thain hire who started at Merrill in mid-September and quit Dec. 18, the day Bank of America took over.
He was at the firm for 3 months?
He walked away with a $24.9 million bonus for those three months of work, which figures to about $249,000 a day. The day he quit, his wife closed on a $36 million luxury Park Ave. co-op, records show.
Yup, three months; it was in his contract.
Cuomo reveals 4 top Merrill Lynch execs grabbed big bucks just before government-financed takeover
by Greg B. Smith - Daily News - Wednesday, February 11th 2009, 4:00 AM
Four of the top executives at Merrill Lynch pocketed $121 million in bonuses just before taxpayers helped finance a takeover of the failing firm, the Daily News has learned.
The flush foursome each pocketed payments ranging from $18 million to $39 million, investigators from the state attorney general's office found.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for the past month has been examining the highly suspicious timing of the last-minute Merrill handouts.
In all, Merrill doled out $3.6 billion in bonuses just days before Bank of America finalized its deal to buy the collapsing firm - with the help of $45 billion in taxpayer money.
Cuomo presented his initial findings Tuesday to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), whose House Financial Services Committee holds hearings Wednesday in Washington on how banks are spending bailout funds.
"One disturbing question that must be answered is whether Merrill Lynch and Bank of America timed the bonuses in such a way as to force taxpayers to pay for them through the deal funding," Cuomo wrote to Frank.
Cuomo's investigators have been particularly interested in Merrill's rush to pay the perks in December, a month before the usual January bonus timetable.
Cuomo called the decision to accelerate the bonuses "a surprising fit of corporate irresponsibility" that "richly rewarded their failed executives."
Cuomo has subpoenaed former Merrill Chief Executive Officer John Thain and Bank of America's chief administrative officer, Steele Alphin, about the bonuses.
When Cuomo first asked Merrill about its bonus plans back in October, Merrill claimed it hadn't finalized the total size of its bonus pool.
Soon after, it was revealed that Thain was angling for a $40 million bonus. When that embarrassing fact went public, Thain backed off.
Four of his top deputies faced no such change of fortune, however, pocketing a total of $121 million as Merrill evaporated.
One beneficiary was Peter Kraus, a Thain hire who started at Merrill in mid-September and quit Dec. 18, the day Bank of America took over.
He walked away with a $24.9 million bonus for those three months of work, which figures to about $249,000 a day. The day he quit, his wife closed on a $36 million luxury Park Ave. co-op, records show.
Kraus declined to answer questions, although a source familiar with the matter said the amount was guaranteed in his Merrill contract.
Cuomo's investigators want to know why Merrill thought such a guarantee was appropriate given the firm's collapse - and why Merrill didn't try to void it.
The bonuses were handed out just before Merrill announced a record $15 billion loss for the fourth quarter,which brought the year's total losses to nearly $27 billion.
How the firm will try to justify handing out bonuses with such a lousy record remains to be seen.
Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri said Merrill Lynch was an independent company when Merrill's compensation committee approved the bonuses.
Silvestri added that many of the Merrill bonuses were contractually guaranteed.
Bank of America's top eight executives took no incentive compensation for 2008. The next tier saw their bonuses cut 80%.
Executive bonuses have become a flash point for resentment as the economy continues to stumble and taxpayers find themselves footing the bill for Wall Street's failures.
Two weeks ago, President Obama called the $18 billion in bonuses Wall Street had just awarded itself "shameful."
In all, Merrill doled out $3.6 billion in bonuses just days before Bank of America finalized its deal to buy the collapsing firm - with the help of $45 billion in taxpayer money.
Greed doesn't cover it. Arrogance.
Cuomo's investigators have been particularly interested in Merrill's rush to pay the perks in December, a month before the usual January bonus timetable.
This is more than arrogant; it borders on the illegal.
One beneficiary was Peter Kraus, a Thain hire who started at Merrill in mid-September and quit Dec. 18, the day Bank of America took over.
He was at the firm for 3 months?
He walked away with a $24.9 million bonus for those three months of work, which figures to about $249,000 a day. The day he quit, his wife closed on a $36 million luxury Park Ave. co-op, records show.
Yup, three months; it was in his contract.
Cuomo reveals 4 top Merrill Lynch execs grabbed big bucks just before government-financed takeover
by Greg B. Smith - Daily News - Wednesday, February 11th 2009, 4:00 AM
Four of the top executives at Merrill Lynch pocketed $121 million in bonuses just before taxpayers helped finance a takeover of the failing firm, the Daily News has learned.
The flush foursome each pocketed payments ranging from $18 million to $39 million, investigators from the state attorney general's office found.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for the past month has been examining the highly suspicious timing of the last-minute Merrill handouts.
In all, Merrill doled out $3.6 billion in bonuses just days before Bank of America finalized its deal to buy the collapsing firm - with the help of $45 billion in taxpayer money.
Cuomo presented his initial findings Tuesday to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), whose House Financial Services Committee holds hearings Wednesday in Washington on how banks are spending bailout funds.
"One disturbing question that must be answered is whether Merrill Lynch and Bank of America timed the bonuses in such a way as to force taxpayers to pay for them through the deal funding," Cuomo wrote to Frank.
Cuomo's investigators have been particularly interested in Merrill's rush to pay the perks in December, a month before the usual January bonus timetable.
Cuomo called the decision to accelerate the bonuses "a surprising fit of corporate irresponsibility" that "richly rewarded their failed executives."
Cuomo has subpoenaed former Merrill Chief Executive Officer John Thain and Bank of America's chief administrative officer, Steele Alphin, about the bonuses.
When Cuomo first asked Merrill about its bonus plans back in October, Merrill claimed it hadn't finalized the total size of its bonus pool.
Soon after, it was revealed that Thain was angling for a $40 million bonus. When that embarrassing fact went public, Thain backed off.
Four of his top deputies faced no such change of fortune, however, pocketing a total of $121 million as Merrill evaporated.
One beneficiary was Peter Kraus, a Thain hire who started at Merrill in mid-September and quit Dec. 18, the day Bank of America took over.
He walked away with a $24.9 million bonus for those three months of work, which figures to about $249,000 a day. The day he quit, his wife closed on a $36 million luxury Park Ave. co-op, records show.
Kraus declined to answer questions, although a source familiar with the matter said the amount was guaranteed in his Merrill contract.
Cuomo's investigators want to know why Merrill thought such a guarantee was appropriate given the firm's collapse - and why Merrill didn't try to void it.
The bonuses were handed out just before Merrill announced a record $15 billion loss for the fourth quarter,which brought the year's total losses to nearly $27 billion.
How the firm will try to justify handing out bonuses with such a lousy record remains to be seen.
Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri said Merrill Lynch was an independent company when Merrill's compensation committee approved the bonuses.
Silvestri added that many of the Merrill bonuses were contractually guaranteed.
Bank of America's top eight executives took no incentive compensation for 2008. The next tier saw their bonuses cut 80%.
Executive bonuses have become a flash point for resentment as the economy continues to stumble and taxpayers find themselves footing the bill for Wall Street's failures.
Two weeks ago, President Obama called the $18 billion in bonuses Wall Street had just awarded itself "shameful."
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Dowd scores again
President Obama had interviews with five TV anchors.
He told the anchors that the man who helped make him president, Tom Daschle, had made “a serious mistake” by not paying taxes on a car and driver. (It should have been a harbinger of doom when Daschle began sporting those determined-to-be-hip round red glasses.)
Funky glasses.
Mr. Obama’s errors on the helter-skelter stimulus package were also self-induced. He should put down those Lincoln books and order “Dave” from Netflix. When Kevin Kline becomes an accidental president, he summons his personal accountant, Murray Blum, to the White House to cut millions in silly programs out of the federal budget so he can give money to the homeless.
“Who does these books?” Blum says with disgust, red-penciling an ad campaign to boost consumers’ confidence in cars they’d already bought. “If I ran my office this way, I’d be out of business.”
Mr. Obama should have taken a red pencil to the $819 billion stimulus bill and slashed all the provisions that looked like caricatures of Democratic drunken-sailor spending.
In an economic stimulus package bunches of nonsense werre tacked on, making easy targets for the Republicans.
As Senator Kit Bond, a Republican, put it, there were so many good targets that he felt “like a mosquito in a nudist colony.”
Case in point.
He was especially worried about the provision requiring the steel and iron for infrastructure construction to be American-made, and by the time the chastened president talked to Chris Wallace on Fox Tuesday, he agreed that “we can’t send a protectionist message.”
Favors returned, obviously.
Mr. Obama protested to Brian Williams that the programs denounced as “wasteful” by Republicans “amount to less than 1 percent of the entire package.” All the more reason to cut them and create a lean, clean bill tailored to creating jobs.
Precisely.
The Democratic president has been spending so much time trying — and failing — to win over Republicans that he may not have noticed the disillusionment in his own ranks.
A little disillusioning, but we must remember the long haul.
Betrayed by their bankers and leaders, Americans were desperate to trust someone when they made Barack Obama president. His debut has left them skeptical about his willingness to smack down those who would flout his high standards or waste our money. Companies that have gotten bailouts continue to make a mockery of taxpayers.
Until it came to light Tuesday, Wells Fargo, which received $25 billion in federal funds, was blithely planning a series of “employee recognition outings” to Las Vegas luxury hotels this month.
As ABC reported, Bank of America took its $45 billion in bailout funds and sponsored a five-day carnival outside the Super Bowl stadium, and Morgan Stanley took its $10 billion in bailout money and held a three-day conference at the Breakers in Palm Beach. (Morgan Stanley had also still planned to send top employees to Monte Carlo and the Bahamas, events just canceled.)
The New York Post revealed that Sandy Weill, former chief executive of Citigroup, took a company jet to fly his family for a Christmas holiday to a $12,000-a-night luxury resort in San José del Cabo, Mexico. No matter that the company just got a $50 billion federal bailout and laid off 53,000 worldwide.
The interior of the 18-seat jet, as described by The Post, is posh, with a full bar, fine-wine selection, $13,000 carpets, Baccarat crystal glasses, Cristofle sterling silver flatware and — my personal favorite — pillows made from Hermès scarves.
Aux barricades!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Liberan a ex Miss Sinaloa
Descartan elementos que involucren a Laura Elena Zúñiga con el narcotráfico; amplían detención a su presunto novio, Ángel Orlando García Urquiza y a cinco sujetos más (Foto: Archivo ELUNIVERSAL ) Jorge Alejandro Medellín - El Universal
Ciudad de México Viernes 30 de enero de 2009 14:35
La Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) informó sobre la liberación de Laura Zúñiga Huízar, quien permaneció arraigada desde diciembre de 2008, luego de ser detenida junto con presuntos integrantes del Cártel de Sinaloa.
La liberación de la exrepresentante de la belleza en Sinaloa, se dio días después de que solicitara un amparo para obtener su libertad, aunque había ganado otro para no permanecer incomunicada.
La PGR informó también sobre la ampliación del arraigo por 38 días, solicitada y obtenida en contra José Luis Urquiza, quien es una de las personas que acompañaba a la miss Sinaloa en el momento de su detención.
Su liberación se dio por falta de elementos, informo la Procuraduría.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Citiboobs
Nix the jet, boobs. Maureen Dowd's column today is a winner: Wall Street’s Socialist Jet-Setters.
As President Obama spreads his New Testament balm over the capital, I’m longing for a bit of Old Testament wrath.
Couldn’t he throw down his BlackBerry tablet and smash it in anger over the feckless financiers, the gods of gold and their idols — in this case not a gilt calf but an $87,000 area rug, a cache of diamond Tiffany and Cartier watches and a French-made luxury corporate jet?
Now that we’re nationalizing, couldn’t we fire any obtuse bankers and auto executives who cling to perks and bonuses even as the economy is following John Thain down his antique commode?
How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?
The chutpaz, the temerity, the arrogance of it amazed me.
The “Citiboobs” — as The New York Post, which broke the news, calls them — watched as the car chieftains got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts, and the A.I.G. moguls got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments. But the boobs still didn’t get the message.
So Senator Carl Levin called Secretary Geitner to call Citi and tell them to nix the jet.
“They woke up pretty quickly,” says a Treasury official, adding that they protested for a bit. “Six months ago, they would have kept the plane and flown it to Washington.”
They still had the nerve to protest; amazing.
Senator Levin said that the financiers will not be able to change their warped mentality, but will have to be reined in by Geithner’s new leashes. “I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change,” Levin told me. “These bankers got away with murder, and it’s obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions. I get incensed at the thought that a bank that’s getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes.”
We are being bamboozled, plain and simple.
New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, always gratifying on the issue of clawing back money from the greedy creeps on Wall Street, on Tuesday subpoenaed Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive, over $4 billion in bonuses he handed out as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America.
In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, Thain used the specious, contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they’re keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging.
“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.
Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism.
Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain, when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm, how he could justify spending $1 million to renovate his office. As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported, big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.”
Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment? It’s psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.
Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.’s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won.
Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O’Neal?
“Well — his office was very different — than — the — the general décor of — Merrill’s offices,” Thain replied. “It really would have been — very difficult — for — me to use it in the form that it was in.”
Did it have a desk and a phone?
How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps?
Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.
Where is Vishinsky when ae need him?
As President Obama spreads his New Testament balm over the capital, I’m longing for a bit of Old Testament wrath.
Couldn’t he throw down his BlackBerry tablet and smash it in anger over the feckless financiers, the gods of gold and their idols — in this case not a gilt calf but an $87,000 area rug, a cache of diamond Tiffany and Cartier watches and a French-made luxury corporate jet?
Now that we’re nationalizing, couldn’t we fire any obtuse bankers and auto executives who cling to perks and bonuses even as the economy is following John Thain down his antique commode?
How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?
The chutpaz, the temerity, the arrogance of it amazed me.
The “Citiboobs” — as The New York Post, which broke the news, calls them — watched as the car chieftains got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts, and the A.I.G. moguls got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments. But the boobs still didn’t get the message.
So Senator Carl Levin called Secretary Geitner to call Citi and tell them to nix the jet.
“They woke up pretty quickly,” says a Treasury official, adding that they protested for a bit. “Six months ago, they would have kept the plane and flown it to Washington.”
They still had the nerve to protest; amazing.
Senator Levin said that the financiers will not be able to change their warped mentality, but will have to be reined in by Geithner’s new leashes. “I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change,” Levin told me. “These bankers got away with murder, and it’s obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions. I get incensed at the thought that a bank that’s getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes.”
We are being bamboozled, plain and simple.
New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, always gratifying on the issue of clawing back money from the greedy creeps on Wall Street, on Tuesday subpoenaed Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive, over $4 billion in bonuses he handed out as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America.
In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, Thain used the specious, contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they’re keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging.
“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.
Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism.
Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain, when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm, how he could justify spending $1 million to renovate his office. As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported, big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.”
Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment? It’s psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.
Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.’s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won.
Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O’Neal?
“Well — his office was very different — than — the — the general décor of — Merrill’s offices,” Thain replied. “It really would have been — very difficult — for — me to use it in the form that it was in.”
Did it have a desk and a phone?
How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps?
Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.
Where is Vishinsky when ae need him?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Stoopeed? Yup. Stupid.
Britain Finds Drugs on Plane; Crew Arrested
LONDON (Agence France-Presse) — The crew members of a South African Airways plane were arrested Tuesday after about $450,000 worth of cannabis and cocaine were found on a flight from Johannesburg to London, customs officials said.
Border agency officials found 110 pounds of cannabis, worth about $210,000, and 9 pounds of cocaine, worth about $240,000, in three suitcases, said a spokesman for Britain’s revenue and customs agency.
All 15 members of the plane’s flight and cabin crew — 10 women and five men — were arrested after the plane landed at Heathrow Airport at 8 a.m.
Customs agents found the cannabis in the suitcases when the crew members passed through a customs clearance point, said Bob Gaiger, the spokesman.
Additional searches revealed a white powder that tested positive for cocaine.
“Interviews will be taking place and will probably go into tomorrow, and then we will decide whether we are going to charge anyone,” Mr. Gaiger said. The pilot was among the crew members who were detained, he added.
Mr. Gaiger underlined how seriously British customs took such cases, saying that it was committed to playing “a vital role in the fight to prevent illegal drugs from entering the U.K. and in protecting our communities from the violence and corruption that always accompany this hideous trade.”
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Pointlessness
Venezuela Breaks Off Ties
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela said Wednesday that it had broken off diplomatic relations with Israel to protest its military offensive in Gaza. The decision by President Hugo Chávez’s government came more than a week after it expelled the Israeli ambassador. Bolivia also broke off relations with Israel.
Irrelevant.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela said Wednesday that it had broken off diplomatic relations with Israel to protest its military offensive in Gaza. The decision by President Hugo Chávez’s government came more than a week after it expelled the Israeli ambassador. Bolivia also broke off relations with Israel.
Irrelevant.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Subcommander Marcos is back - Oy vay
The purported leader of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation makes an appearance at a summit of sorts, the First Festival of the Dignified Anger, or some such nonsense. No, wait, my mistake: the First World Festival of Dignified Anger; pardon me.El Subcomandante Marcos, líder militar del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, conversa con el comandante Tacho durante la inauguración del Primer Festival Mundial de La Digna Rabia en la Universidad de La Tierra en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas | Fotogalería | Ver nota
(That pipe looks amazingly Freudian, to coin a phrase. And silly.)
Participa el subcomandante del EZLN en el Primer Festival de la Digna Rabia; advierte que continuará la lucha zapatista hasta que se alcance la paz, la justicia y la democracia, sin trampas y sin simulaciones
He warned that the Zapatista fight will continue until peace, justice and democracy are attained, without traps or simulations. Fine enough. Chiapans are the poorest of Mexicans, neglected and forgotten, so the fight of the Zapatistas in a noble one, in that respect.
But then this guy spews more opinions, and he seems nothing much more than a tired radical anchored to the past. To put it mildly. A less mild, a less restrained, opinion might be, is, that he is an anti-Semite.
Proof? Get this crap: El Subcomandante Marcos del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) criticó la lucha que libra el gobierno mexicano contra el narcotráfico, al asegurar que la ha perdido. The SubCommander criticizes the Mexican government's fight against narco-trafficking, assuring that it has been lost. What? There are criminal drug cartels wreaking havoc across (not just) the north of the Mexican nation, killing people and displaying dead bodies in ways to maximize terror, gangs that use money and terror to corrupt government and keep people in fear, and Felipe Calderón has enough cojones to fight these thugs, to try and eradicate them, to loosen their grip on the nation, and all this twit Marcos can do is say sorry, but the fight is lost?
O, it gets better (or, sparing irony, worse): En la sede de la Universidad de la Tierra, donde se han congregado casi dos mil personas de México y el extranjero, Marcos dijo que la globalización que lanzan Israel y los Estados Unidos caigan en cualquier lugar, para estremecer a las personas. In the headquarters of the University of the Earth (modest, ain't it? This editor should, and will, strive to limit commentary whilst translating), where almost two thousand people have congregated from Mexico and outside, Marcos said that the globalization that the US and Israel launch will fail, and some other crap.
So, where does Israel enter into the Chiapas equation? Well, as a cheap way to generate anger and deflect serious thought from real issues, it is always easy to attack the Jews. It is a time-proven tactic: blame los Judios for something, anything, just to generate anger and direct it toward the Jews.
En su participación, el Subcomandante se dio tiempo de criticar a Marcelo Ebrad, al asegurar que un gobierno de izquierda "asesinó a un grupo de jóvenes" que se divertían en una discoteca, pero extrañamente un sector de la izquierda "guardo silencio" y no criticó la violencia que ejerció la policía.
After praising the Iraqi shoe-thrower, he castigates Marcelo Ebrad, head of government of the Federal District of Mexico City, stating that a leftist government "assassinated a group of youngsters" that were having a good time at a discoteque, but strangely a leftist sector "keeps silent" and does not criticize that police violence.
So, the Jews, leftists and police are all to blame for horrible things. What else can this freekin' genius dream up?
La policía que está "preparada" para abusar contra jóvenes, contra vendedores ambulantes, colonos y ciudadanos que se disientan contra la instalación de una pista de hielo en el zócalo capitalino.
Well: the police is "prepared" to abuse youngsters, (street) vendors, settlers and citizens who dissent against the installation of a temporary ice-skating rink in the DF Zocalo. [Maybe he also objects to little green beings mucking up the evening sky, the high-frequency broadcasts of Martians (who clearly are in cahoots with Ebrad, the Federal Police and the Jews), and the black helicopters that kidnap innocent citizens and deliver them to extra-terrestials for torture and brain washing.]
Aun más y sin mencionarlo por su nombre, el zapatista descalificó la consulta que impulsó Andrés Manuel López Obrador, contra la reforma petrolera.
O, he also disqualified AMLO's criticism of the reform of the Mexican petroleum industry.
Oy vay, spare me. This guy is a twit. Look, I agree that AMLO and Ebrad are demagogues, old, tired leftists whose only program is to criticize President Calderón at every turn. As the Mexican petroleum industry slowly slides away, as the nation receives less and less revenue from an industry on an irreversible decline, these two can only criticize Calderón for trying to do something for the nation. Yes, Calderón is hardly a populist, and his actions are corporatist, yet they are also nationalist: to deny that the Mexican oil industry is in decline is tantamount to insisting that, despite what anyone might say, the moon is made of queso. Pure, unadulterated bullshit, lies meant to decieve.
Yet Ebrad and AMLO make little attempt to hide their paramount aim: to gain power. People understand that. Hell, what politician doesn't want power? Look at Blagojevich and Burris in Illinois, and tell me you need more proof.
But this Marcos twit is on another level: what in damnation's name does Israel have anything to do with Chiapas, with Mexico? Nothing. Absolutamenta nada, Sub-Commandante. Absolutely nothing. And what is it with this Sub-Commander crap? If he's a sub-commander, who in the hell is the Commander? And how come the commander allows such a twit to represent the Chiapan revolt?
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