"Idiots" Indeed.

[pete]

The stock market was a giant Ponzi scheme, and the WSJ is a joke.

Most of these hedge fund managers should be in prison.

If it were you or I on a tiny scale compared to what they did you can bet we would be!!
Money is power even when its stolen

 

[Red Dawn]

Great piece in the WSJ

'Idiots' Indeed - WSJ.com

If Congress is going to start setting legal limits on salaries and bonuses in the U.S., it is going to drive talent out of Bank of America and these other banks and into institutions without such limits, perhaps abroad. The same goes for Attorney General Cuomo's implied threat of prosecutions.

A few quick facts about Wall Street bonuses. The pretext for the political outrage was the New York comptroller's report this week on the aggregate data for bonuses in 2008. That "irresponsible" bonus pool of $18 billion was for every worker in the New York financial industry, from top dogs to secretaries. This bonus pool fell 44% in 2008, the largest percentage decline in 30 years. The average bonus was $112,000; bonuses typically make up most of an employee's salary on Wall Street. The comptroller estimates that this decline will cost New York State $1 billion in lost tax revenue and New York City $275 million. Both city and state may have to announce layoffs.

Who do you think will make up for those lost tax revenues?

Are you surprised that the WSJ is offering up a defense of our corporate masters?

Its spin. And you've apparently been falling for it for 20 years, ever since you first turned on the Rush Limbaugh show. Limbaugh and Hannity are pimps for corporate america, and their agenda: driving down wages by outsourcing jobs, moving our manufacturing base to low wage countries, dismantly unions and collective bargaining, and converting pensions into cash balance 401(k)s. I can understand the rightwing's obsession with guns, abortion, and teaching creation science. But I never could fucking understanding why low and middle income rightwingers, like Joe Not the Plumber, felt compelled to be corporate pimps and parrot the talking points multi-billionaire Rush Limbaugh gave them.

No one is talking about a national law "capping" CEO wages. The proposal is to cap wages on those fuckers who are taking billions of tax payer bailouts and squandering them on bonuses and other frivolous shit. These fucks shouldn't be making a DIME in bonuses. Not if we're paying for their company to operate. Is the UAW, or the janitor's union geting a fucking raise?

And please, just stop with the Ayn Rand shit that CEO's will flee the country to work overseas. I'm pretty sure the average German or Japanese CEO isn't making 500 times what one of their skilled blue collar or white collar employee is making. You're making excuses for greed.

 

[Annie]

Is it?

Tell us why you think that.

Because for years, these banks, industries, businesses were doing the wrong thing. Now the government thinks they can give them money to stem their problems? Like cutting CEO pay or creating quid pro quos for the money and products will help? The likelihood of that saving jobs or businesses is next to nothing.

Instead those CEO's need to make the hard choices and decisions they should have been making long ago. If taking pay cuts help, do it. If laying off people is the answer, do it. If changing your business or product will work, do it. If going overseas, do it.

A lot of words there but I can't really figure out what they mean except you think we should allow the same CEOs to do whatever they want.

Is that what you meant?

Or am I just not getting your plan?

My 'plan' would be to let businesses succeed or fail based upon their performance. If a company spends its resources poorly, they should fail. If they manage to hang on through tough times, they will likely thrive when the times change. There is a winnowing that should be occurring, the failure of the government to allow the process to unfold is going to cause more problems down the line, IMO.

 

[editec]

My 'plan' would be to let businesses succeed or fail based upon their performance. If a company spends its resources poorly, they should fail. If they manage to hang on through tough times, they will likely thrive when the times change. There is a winnowing that should be occurring, the failure of the government to allow the process to unfold is going to cause more problems down the line, IMO.

Now had we been a nation which issued its own currency and had not given that right over to the PRIVATE banks, and were we NOT insuring everyone's savings up to $250,000 in the event of bank failures, I'd agree with you.

Of course were the above conditions true, this mess would not have happened, either.

If I sound like an Austrian economist now, that's because in that sense they are right.

If the government never had anything to do with banking, and monetary policy, this disaster would never happened.

OTOH, had we not changed to the regulations prvententing banks from taking these enormous risks, this event would never have happened, either.

We have a very fuctional banking system until we deregulated many of the safeguards we had in place to prevent this sort of goody specualtion and risk taking by out banks.

So what really happened is that the mavens in charge got to pick and choose which aspects of these two very different economic schools of thought they wanted.

The got rid of the regulations which prevented them from taking risks, but they kept the part of the system which gave them the advantages of being banks at the same time.

Nice for them...until the inevitable happened.


Now their pain is our pain, too.

To put this situation simplicitically...it's socialism for the bankers and capitalism for the rest of us.

 

[Annie]

My 'plan' would be to let businesses succeed or fail based upon their performance. If a company spends its resources poorly, they should fail. If they manage to hang on through tough times, they will likely thrive when the times change. There is a winnowing that should be occurring, the failure of the government to allow the process to unfold is going to cause more problems down the line, IMO.

Now had we been a nation which issued its own currency and had not given that right over to the PRIVATE banks, and were we NOT insuring everyone's savings up to $250,000 in the event of bank failures, I'd agree with you.

Of course were the above conditions true, this mess would not have happened, either.

If I sound like an Austrian economist now, that's because in that sense they are right.

If the government never had anything to do with banking, and monetary policy, this disaster would never happened.

OTOH, had we not changed to the regulations prvententing banks from taking these enormous risks, this event would never have happened, either.

We have a very fuctional banking system until we deregulated many of the safeguards we had in place to prevent this sort of goody specualtion and risk taking by out banks.

So what really happened is that the mavens in charge got to pick and choose which aspects of these two very different economic schools of thought they wanted.

The got rid of the regulations which prevented them from taking risks, but they kept the part of the system which gave them the advantages of being banks at the same time.

Nice for them...until the inevitable happened.


Now their pain is our pain, too.

To put this situation simplicitically...it's socialism for the bankers and capitalism for the rest of us.

Sorry, I'll have to disagree. What is being done here and in Europe is laying the framework for a real economic meltdown. One lesson we should all recognize, government is not business, yet with this infusion of phony money, they will be micromanaging all sectors of the economic system to the point of disaster. I think there are plenty of CEO's and other officers that should be facing Blagojevich's fate. However there seems little interest by the justice department to look into that angle, why do you think that is?

It seems many in Congress and the Executive branch see this as a f'ing golden opportunity to realize their dreams for America. They will rue the day.

 

[Care4all]

Because for years, these banks, industries, businesses were doing the wrong thing. Now the government thinks they can give them money to stem their problems? Like cutting CEO pay or creating quid pro quos for the money and products will help? The likelihood of that saving jobs or businesses is next to nothing.

Instead those CEO's need to make the hard choices and decisions they should have been making long ago. If taking pay cuts help, do it. If laying off people is the answer, do it. If changing your business or product will work, do it. If going overseas, do it.

A lot of words there but I can't really figure out what they mean except you think we should allow the same CEOs to do whatever they want.

Is that what you meant?

Or am I just not getting your plan?

My 'plan' would be to let businesses succeed or fail based upon their performance. If a company spends its resources poorly, they should fail. If they manage to hang on through tough times, they will likely thrive when the times change. There is a winnowing that should be occurring, the failure of the government to allow the process to unfold is going to cause more problems down the line, IMO.

but the gvt would then be paying out thru the FDIC billions upon billions to those banking with the Banks that went belly up....

again, because we reduced regulations a few decades ago, that allowed banks to merge, to become MEGA Banks and TOO BIG TO FAIL, as we've been told about these guys....the country was put between a rock and a hard place...

i was against the bail out, thought it was a waste and as you, let the fittest, survive! I HOPE i will be proven wrong, when all is said and done, and all this stimulus/bailout crap will work!

And guess what the fricking banks are doing with the bail out money? Buying up, other banks....becoming even larger and moreso, TOO BIG TO FAIL.

this is all just a mess, a real mess!

 

[RodISHI]

They are doing what we believe now to have been the wrong thing because the rules and regulations in play gave them no other choice.

That would be a flat out lie.

Big banks have been given free reign to rape and rob for well over ten years. In that they became very adept and creative accounting. I have two erroneous 1099's from two large banking entities for over $80,000.00 a piece. Keep in mind I am one very little fish out there in an ocean of billions of much larger fish.

Big banks have been using and abusing the system for all it is worth for years and the authorities have looked the other way. They have created erroneous documentation to collect from every government agency out there that gives out money. They gain control and they damn sure do not feel like giving it up no matter what they have to do to keep it.

The current excuse is, "They are to big to let fail." Screw them let them fall and have people with integrity standing by to pick up the pieces.

For the people bought homes they could not afford let them lose them and restucture their lives within their budget. Houses have gone beyond affordability of the common man. The prices are inflated to the hilt. It is time for the housing market to bow down to reality.

Seperate the insurance, mutual funds and banking industries. They should have never been allowed to monopolize the money markets and keep the economy hostage.

Bullshit, Rodishi. The banks haven't been free of Regulation since priort to 1932. Your thinking otherwise doesn't change the reality. There is no aspect of your life in the USA from 1932 to the present that is unaffected by government rules and regulations. No one did away with all banking rules and regulations. No one. They in fact could not because most states have as many if not more odd ball rules than the Feds do.

What Was The Glass-Steagall Act?
In 1933, in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and during a nationwide commercial bank failure and the Great Depression two members of Congress put their names on what is known today as the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA).

This act separated investment and commercial banking activities. At the time, "improper banking activity", or what was considered overzealous commercial bank involvement in stock market investment, was deemed the main culprit of the financial crash.

Senator Carter Glass, a former Treasury secretary and the founder of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, was the primary force behind the GSA. Henry Bascom Steagall was a House of Representatives member and chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee. Steagall agreed to support the act with Glass after an amendment was added permitting bank deposit insurance (this was the first time it was allowed).

As a collective reaction to one of the worst financial crises at the time, the GSA set up a regulatory firewall between commercial and investment bank activities, both of which were curbed and controlled. Banks were given a year to decide on whether they would specialize in commercial or in investment banking. Only 10% of commercial banks' total income could stem from securities; however, an exception allowed commercial banks to underwrite government-issued bonds. Financial giants at the time such as JP Morgan and Company, which were seen as part of the problem, were directly targeted and forced to cut their services and, hence, a main source of their income. By creating this barrier, the GSA was aiming to prevent the banks' use of deposits in the case of a failed underwriting job.


Despite the lax implementation of the GSA by the Federal Reserve Board, which is the regulator of U.S. banks, in 1956, Congress made another decision to regulate the banking sector. In an effort to prevent financial conglomerates from amassing too much power, the new act focused on banks involved in the insurance sector. Congress agreed that bearing the high risks undertaken in underwriting insurance is not good banking practice. Thus, as an extension of the Glass-Steagall Act, the Bank Holding Company Act further separated financial activities by creating a wall between insurance and banking. Even though banks could, and can still can, sell insurance and insurance products, underwriting insurance was forbidden.

Consequently, to the delight of many in the banking industry (not everyone, however, was happy), in November of 1999 Congress repealed the GSA with the establishment of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which eliminated the GSA restrictions against affiliations between commercial and investment banks. Furthermore, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allows banking institutions to provide a broader range of services, including underwriting and other dealing activities.

Excerpt of the Repeal of The Glass Steagall Act Has Produced The Highly Leveraged Investment Imbroglio That Is Just Now Starting To Unwind
The repeal was the foundation, that is the keystone, that provided for non transparent financial manipulation and use of leverage to revolutionize the activities of investment beginning in 1999, to amass huge fortunes for the investment bankers who designed, marketed and oversaw the use of leveraged investments, and to generate awesomely speculative endeavors at hedge funds, which have gone unregulated by government oversight.

Snatching up of a bank with an old name then grab the mutuals and get into the insurancegame.

In 1999, Norwest was the Minneapolis bank that bought the Wells Fargo name. In late 2000 Norwest was not telling Wells customers that they actually owned the Wells Fargo name. (I was there, actually one of those customers who was led to believe I was banking w/ Wells Fargo)

Oh they snagged First Security too! My parents bank there. The type of old people that believe banks keep good records and the banks are accountable. Truthfully too sick to really keep an eye on the records the new bank owner has monkeyed around to snag an extra ten grand out of their account with the ten grand never showing up to the end where it was sent. (I was there when we started looking for that ten grand that amazingly never ended up credited to my account. I was never given the chance to get it into court so the records could be supeoned either.)

By Amy Kover
May 15, 2000
Last month Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich pulled off a humdinger of a deal. He snagged Utah-based First Security for half the price that another bank had agreed to pay in an aborted deal last year. Not only was the price hard to beat, but the acquisition also transformed Wells into a leading bank in the booming Rocky Mountain region. What's the first thing you would do if you were Kovacevich? Dial up the top analysts on Wall Street and declare that you'd just made the best buy since the Louisiana Purchase?

Who was the other bank? Might it have been CITI?
The employees of First Security were treated right. I don't think so they lost half of the value of their retirement funds with the take over. Heard that one from one of the horses mouth.

Hartford Insurance was in the mix in 2000 as Wells/Norwest was cutting a deal for a third of Hartford's business (although we were unaware of this until 2004). Ironically Rod was in an accident in 2000 with a Hartford insured customer. The Hartford guy agreed his ticketed clients were at fault and asked for an accounting of the damage. Amazingly that guy at Hartford disappeared when Wells/Norwest got into the mix to get me back into a work truck asp until Hartford paid for the one their client totally screwed.

Super Value funds
Dial Finance
Bank United
Advantage Funds
Strongs Capital Management

Mutual Fund Antitrust
San Francisco, CA: (Oct-28-07) A class action lawsuit was filed against Wells Fargo & Company, Wells Fargo Investments, LLC, H.D. Vest Investment Services, LLC, Wells Fargo Funds Trust, Wells Fargo Funds Management, LLC, Wells Capital Management Incorporated, Wells Fargo Funds Distributor, LLC, and Stephens Inc., alleging that the defendants had questionable business practices. The suit claimed that the defendants adequately disclosed that they paid brokerage houses to promote Wells Fargo mutual funds. The case further alleges that these payments were financed by alleged excessive fees charged to the mutual funds. The allegations are a violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5.

As part of a settlement reached, the defendants did not admit to any wrongdoing and denied all allegations. Sources state that if the settlement is approved, the defendants will pay $1.15 million into a fund. The fund will be used to pay certain costs of giving notice of the settlement and administering it; the attorneys' fees, expenses, and compensation to the lead plaintiff to be approved by the Court. [BUSINESS WIRE: MUTUAL FUND FEES]

Normally when a non disclosure is reached it is because they obviously were doing what the claim alleged.

PIMCO mutual funds, Wells Fargo mutual funds, .... The Wells Fargo Preferred Funds include mutual funds in the following mutual fund

Just another suit were people have to recover what obviously was snookered away from them by a bank that was allowed to get into the investment game due to Glass Seagal being repealed.




This line reallly gets me knowing that Wells/Norwest purposely shorted/misreported my loan funds by eighty grand and made more altered papers than you can shake a stick at knowing they could be reimbursed by the Feds/SBA for my guaranteed loan, "We want to be the best customer- service bank in the world."


I could go on but you do the research yourself or remain deaf, dumb and blind if you like.


Investment banking and commercial banking should have never been allowed to merge.


Obviously when a small business is fully and intentionally taken out of business by BANKSTERS this country ain't what she used to be.