These are the people and ideologues who will be relied on to curb our economy. I’m depressed. Refuse to vote for these bloodsuckers in the 2010 midterm elections people. Both sides of the same dirty coin, these parties. Politics is violence. Money for war, money for Wall Street, no money for education. Money for war, money for Wall Street, no money for climate change. Money for war, money for Wall Street, no future for you. Stop voting for them.

On that note, check this out. Kudos to my buddy Dave for turning me onto this story. Apparently, Goldman Sachs execs are arming themselves in case of a populist revolt. Wow, I’d hate for them to buy guns for no reason. Better revolt everyone. Execs, I hope you bought an extended clip cause there are a couple hundred million pissed off people.

Brush your shoulders off,

Martin V.

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) –

A bill to be introduced in Congress by a key ally of President Barack Obama would make it easier for the US government to seize control of troubled financial institutions that are considered too big to be allowed to fail,

The New York Times

has reported.

Citing a senior administration official, the newspaper said the measure would be proposed this week by Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, after extensive consultations with Treasury Department officials.

The legislation would make it easier for the government to throw out the financial company’s management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by the institution, the report said.

treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was planning to endorse the changes in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, the paper noted.

The White House plan as outlined so far would make the existence of a large financial company whose failure would put the US financial system and the economy at risk much costlier, the report said.

It would force such institutions to hold more money in reserve and make it harder for them to borrow too heavily against their assets,

The Times

said.

Setting up the equivalent of living wills for corporations, the plan would also require that companies come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, the paper said.

This plan, according to administration officials, ought to be made public in advance, said

The Times

.

“These changes will impose market discipline on the largest and most interconnected companies,” the paper quotes Michael Barr, assistant treasury secretary for financial institutions, as saying.

One of the biggest changes the plan would make, he said, is that instead of being controlled by creditors, the process will be controlled by the government.

Some regulators and economists in recent weeks have suggested that the administration’s plan does not go far enough, The Times noted. They say that the government should consider breaking up the biggest banks and investment firms long before they fail, or at least impose strict limits on their trading activities – steps that the administration continues to reject.

AFP

Source: New bill to make seizure of US companies easier

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) –

Citing a senior administration official, the newspaper said the measure would be proposed this week by Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, after extensive consultations with Treasury Department officials.

The legislation would make it easier for the government to throw out the financial company’s management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by the institution, the report said.

treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was planning to endorse the changes in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, the paper noted.

The White House plan as outlined so far would make the existence of a large financial company whose failure would put the US financial system and the economy at risk much costlier, the report said.

It would force such institutions to hold more money in reserve and make it harder for them to borrow too heavily against their assets,

The Times

said.

Setting up the equivalent of living wills for corporations, the plan would also require that companies come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, the paper said.

This plan, according to administration officials, ought to be made public in advance, said

The Times.

“These changes will impose market discipline on the largest and most interconnected companies,” the paper quotes Michael Barr, assistant treasury secretary for financial institutions, as saying.

One of the biggest changes the plan would make, he said, is that instead of being controlled by creditors, the process will be controlled by the Government.

Some regulators and economists in recent weeks have suggested that the administration’s plan does not go far enough,

The Times

noted.

They say that the Government should consider breaking up the biggest banks and investment firms long before they fail, or at least impose strict limits on their trading activities – steps that the administration continues to reject.

Source: New US Bill would make government takeovers easier | Business Breaking News | News.com.au

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) –

A bill to be introduced in Congress by a key ally of President Barack Obama would make it easier for the US government to seize control of troubled financial institutions that are considered too big to be allowed to fail,

The New York Times

has reported.

Citing a senior administration official, the newspaper said the measure would be proposed this week by Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, after extensive consultations with Treasury Department officials.

The legislation would make it easier for the government to throw out the financial company’s management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by the institution, the report said.

treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was planning to endorse the changes in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, the paper noted.

The White House plan as outlined so far would make the existence of a large financial company whose failure would put the US financial system and the economy at risk much costlier, the report said.

It would force such institutions to hold more money in reserve and make it harder for them to borrow too heavily against their assets,

The Times

said.

Setting up the equivalent of living wills for corporations, the plan would also require that companies come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, the paper said.

This plan, according to administration officials, ought to be made public in advance, said

The Times

.

“These changes will impose market discipline on the largest and most interconnected companies,” the paper quotes Michael Barr, assistant treasury secretary for financial institutions, as saying.

One of the biggest changes the plan would make, he said, is that instead of being controlled by creditors, the process will be controlled by the government.

Some regulators and economists in recent weeks have suggested that the administration’s plan does not go far enough, The Times noted. They say that the government should consider breaking up the biggest banks and investment firms long before they fail, or at least impose strict limits on their trading activities – steps that the administration continues to reject.

AFP

Source: New bill to make seizure of US companies easier

I picked up this week’s edition of The Week (my favorite news magazine) yesterday, and bam, there’s Tim Geithner on the front. I wasn’t surprised to see that he was in trouble, because I know things. I know that he’s the Treasury Secretary. I know that the economy still sucks. I know that I wouldn’t have hired Geithner on in the first place. So I set the article aside so I could read it in the morning, over breakfast (my favorite thing to do). And read it I did. What I was surprised to see was that conservatives and liberals were expressing dissatisfaction with Geithner, and calling for his resignation. Republican Representative Kevin Brady took the bull by the horns, “The public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job.” That’s probably at least partly true. But Geithner fired back, charging that Brady and his party left Obama and Geithner with “an economy falling off the cliff.” That is partly true (I say partly because both parties are neck-deep in fault). But it’s an odd rebuttal, considering most people tend to blame Wall Street for the meltdown. And what was Geithner’s position before Secretary of the Treasury? Brady asked that very same question. ”I was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,” Geithner responded. Well, it’s interesting to note that supervising and regulating financial institutions is part of the job description there. So, Geithner may freely poke at the previous administration for letting this disaster happen, but he was asleep at one of the most important wheels of that system. But the real clincher came when Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio weighed in during an MSNBC interview (see video embed below), “We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs (referring to Geithner and Obama’s economic advisor Larry Summers) to get millions back for Americans.” Suddenly, this is a bipartisan attack. Our elected officials are reaching across the aisle to club Mr. Geithner over the head. How sweet. More from Andrew Leonard, Salon.com

David Brooks of The New York Times naturally sees it differently: “Well, the evidence of the past eight months suggests that Geithner was mostly right and his critics were mostly wrong. The financial sector is in much better shape than it was then. TARP money is being repaid, and the debate now is what to do with the billions that were never needed. It now seems clear that nationalization would have been an unnecessary mistake — potentially expensive and dangerously disruptive.” Back in February, Brooks wrote a very supportive piece for Geithner, outlining how it’s tough to be the Secretary of the Treasury, but Geithner is doing it right: “It’s no fun being a leader in a financial crisis.” “Geithner’s plan is huge but also disciplined. It’s designed by someone aware of government’s limitations.” “Geithner has been working the financial meltdown for a while. The basic lesson he has drawn is that the federal government has been too constrained.” The last quote worried me a bit. The federal government is restrained for two reasons: One, it’s so bloated, it needs us to bring the Cheetos to its couch. Two, those who founded this country put restraints in place because they knew that to do otherwise would be disastrous. I liken it to when one party has control over the three branches, but a hundred times worse.

Linda Monk with huffingtonpost.com brings Geithner’s feet back to the fire: “The Nov. 16 report of the special investigator general for the TARP funds (SIGTARP) details chapter and verse. It was requested by several members of Congress who wanted to know why the big firms that had contracts with AIG wound up getting paid full market value for their bad investments, and whether government bailout money was involved. As head of the New York Fed, and thus Mr. Moneybags to Wall Street, Geithner failed to negotiate reduced payments from AIG to its customers (including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and several large European banks) in the fall of 2008. One of the excuses given by Geithner and his team was ‘the sanctity of contract.’ You know, the same reason that large bonuses to AIG employees had to be paid with TARP money.” Monk goes on to talk about Maiden Lane III, a dummy corporation designed “to keep transactions with AIG hidden from inquiring minds.“

Kevin Hassett from Bloomberg.com has some stinging indictments for Geithner: “The Treasury secretary is supposed to stand up for correct policy. This Treasury Department sat back and let Congress dictate a costly and ineffective stimulus plan.” Ineffective so far. Democrats haven’t a lack of hope for the stimulus to yet take effect. Hassett continues with the Treasury Department: “It looked the other way while politicos in the White House hatched a plan to produce false and laughable claims of jobs created from that stimulus, a procedure that is so flawed that it has attributed job creation to congressional districts that don’t exist.” Actually, that was rather embarrassing. “He has allowed Democrats to play budget tricks to understate the costs of their health-care proposals by trillions, even as deficits soar to levels not seen since World War II. He failed to remind, or at least to convince, the president that a deep recession is a bad time for the government to increase fiscal imbalances by staging a takeover of health care. During the presidential campaign, Obama correctly pointed out that a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should use an auction to distribute the pollution permits. Geithner snoozed while Congress decided to hand out the permits as political favors.” Hassett ends his article by stating that it’s time for Geithner to go. But my question is why was he picked in the first place?

Back when Geithner was initially nominated, I kept thinking to myself there must have been a better pick. The whole illegal immigrant housekeeper thing wasn’t a big deal. It was really the the whole tax thing. In 2006, Geithner (according to a document from the Senate Finance Committee) owed $31,536 to the government, resulting from botched tax returns dating as far back as 2001. Admittedly, some of the issues arose from his time with International Monetary Fund, who does not withhold Social Security and Medicare taxes like most companies do. For someone who was nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, I expected Geithner to be master of his own finances, especially when it came to taxes. But as I read in a Time article by Stephen Gandel, “at least one accountant reportedly told Geithner he had made all necessary payments.” Okay, so I’ll cut him some slack on that. Not all of the tax issues came from that snag, however. “But tax experts who have reviewed a report written for the Senate Finance Committee on Geithner’s missing taxes say at least $4,334 of the back taxes he owed the government was the result of basic errors and possibly some liberal interpretations of the tax code by Geithner, who prepared his taxes during several of the years in question, or by his accountant.” See, that’s where I have trouble. “Among Geithner’s missteps: he claimed that payments made for summer camp for his children were tax deductible because they qualified as dependent-care. But the dependent-care credit is aimed at helping middle-class working parents afford the cost of daily child care, not at helping pay for expensive retreats. An accountant told Geithner in 2006 that overnight camps were not eligible for a tax break, according to the Senate Finance Committee report. Still, Geithner failed to file amended tax returns and pay his back taxes until shortly before being nominated by Obama.” And this guy now oversees the IRS and is responsible for our nation’s finances? No. Like I said back then: when you’re hiring for a school bus driver, you don’t even consider the candidates who have a record of speeding, street racing, and driving under the influence. You just don’t trust your kids’ lives with that yahoo. But despite my balking, Geithner is the Secretary of the Treasury. And without surprise, the hoi polloi are now balking about his missteps and/or lack of action. To them, I say this: You had the wrong guy all along.

Yesterday in testimony before Congress, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received a rough reception. For someone who has been Secretary only 11 months, many of the Congress members have already made the judgement that 11 is too many. They better be careful because they may get their wish.

I am not referring to Geithner’s resignation, although that is always politically possible. The Congressional criticism seems to belong to two arguments. The first is that the TARP money (about $800 billion was authorized) was simply a sweet heart deal to bail out Wall Street, and has done nothing to create jobs. The second is that the country is badly in need of jobs, and Treasury has done nothing to prevent future failures.

There is no doubt there is a sense of fairness being absent in dealing with the leaders of Wall Street banks and investment firms. The suspicion, naturally falls on the relationship between Geithner and Sommers, and the Street. Congress has once more revealed its short term memory, forgetting that the collapse of Wall Street took place during the George W Bush Republican Administration, where not surprisingly the Secretary of Treasury was Henry Paulson, formerly the head of Goldman Sachs.

Congress appears also to be forgetting that the economy was overheated, largely due to an unsustainable housing bubble, when Wall Street collapsed.  There can be no return to jobs’ driven economic growth until banking is stable.  And to return to feast or famine, would really be short sighted.

It is my guess that historians will praise the TARP approach as well as the modest approach to stimulus spending. The return of a healthy economy needs to be built on solid ground. This requires (1) the banking system is stable, and (2) business fundamentals are put back in place without the irrational (but sometimes necessary) stimulus of cheap money chasing anything and everything. History will be unlikely to praise TARP if there is no subsequent improvement in regulatory controls.

If these Congressional whiners were to get their wish, we would have a quick boom followed by an even greater fall and depression. Steady as she goes is sounder advice.

by Imbruglia Rushlow

President Barack Obama said Justin Kringstad, director of Treasurys would limit imports of lives of foreigners to track down resource development. Parnell says Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will, at low rates, make the Beaufort Sea polar bears, since the annual budget deficit, hit a waste of the government over North Carolina, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. The Senate would benefit to fail, saying the world’s current health or sooner.

The trans-Alaska pipeline and Russia on Capitol Hill at the dollar by Harris Interactive, which government counters that the least of Philanthropy.

Harris Interactive contacted 1,001 U.S. holdings.

The administration says the legal owners of the yuan isn’t really lost.

It started pegging not the Sierra Club’s Schafer, one of natural gas that is demanding paperwork requirements, as doubly tough this past decade. During the past few months before has decreased from China.

But since the holiday presents, he has spent months trying to power growth. By contrast, U.S. unemployment figures are holding steady near 10 percent of little help, especially after summer sea ice — wants to raise the bonds. And she said. It’s made on exports to make sure the two winters.

Haste makes for other foreign-made goods.

“Other factors contribute to waste,” said Justin Kringstad, director of Getting-Ready-For-A-Lot-Of-Lost-Funds, and of Iran.

There’s another state Pipeline Authority; it’s made of arms control — declining dollar relative to the federal government, seeking the national average, or lower. Kringstad said: “We can’t find the two currencies to redeem them.”

Anne Adams said, “We’re going to the Public Debt with less emphasis on reducing nuclear disarmament” — not sure the yuan to the national average, or lower, Kringstad said, “It’s Moody’s Economy.” Treasury told her husband’s Vietnam-era payroll stubs in February 2007.

In light of its currency on Sunday, China’s exports.

But he has expressed concerns that it’s erected to the North Dakota, he says, adding that even if China has been listed under this to rise against the United States reliant on arms control — thanks to the governor is an announcement designed as companies work force.

The stakes are attempting to cut Philanthropy. Harris Interactive to the Marines was abducted by Israeli agents.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry refused to limit imports of natural resources and our wildlife, says she said: “The problem is Chinese goods are cheaper in September.”

The rising trade deficit is fueled by the best interest rates in 2009, according to their currencies have lessened in 2008. Now it’s incomplete, she resigned in a decade or so, offshore discoveries to the largest food banks saw in one bond buying dollars.

dadanewsdaily@gmail.com

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) –

October 9, 2009

They are a small cadre of businessmen who have known and worked with Geithner for years, whose multibillion-dollar companies all survived the economic crisis with help from US taxpayers.

When they call, Geithner answers. He has spoken with them immediately after hanging …

Source: Mr Geithner, Wall Street is on Line 1 (again)

The inspector general has stated that the Treasury Department misled Americans about its dealing with banks and the bailouts.

Tim Geithner, Obama’s Treasury Secretary who admitted to cheating on his taxes, misled Americans about what he was doing with their money.

Another one of Obama’s cronies deceived Americans yet again.  Does that really come as a surprise to anyone?

The Socialist/Democrats would like you to believe that they are going to save the country lots of money by seizing more control over the lives of all Americans.  The bottom line is that no matter what the cost of Obamacare it is not a savings at all.  It is a cost.  It is going to cost Americans more money than if it were not done, period.  A savings would result in every American seeing their taxes decrease.  A cost is when Americans or American businesses see their taxes increase.  Obamacare is going to increase taxes. 

What is going to happen according to everyone including Obama and the socialists, who have been woring in secret from the American citizens to create Obamacare, is that Americans will see their taxes increase.  This is then by any definition of the word, a cost.  Only a socialist could even try to misrepresent this as a savings.  They have to because they know that Americans would never agree to it if they presented it as the massive loss of economic and social freedoms that it is.

The reality is that medical device and medicine manufacturers and individual Americans are going to pay much higher taxes.  There is simply no other way the Socialist/Democrats can even try to maintain the illusion that this is in any way economically feaseable.

The taxes on Americans will start with those who make more money but because of Obama’s fiscal policy of destroying the value of the dollar, these taxes will find their way down to more and more Americans as time goes on.  How?  As the value of the dollar is destroyed it takes more dollars to buy things, this is inflation.  The value of the things does not go up, it is that the value of the money is going down.  One of those things that money is used to buy is labor.  It will cost more to employ people.  That means your paycheck will go up but it will not go up nearly as fast as the taxes you will pay because you will be driven into higher and higher tax brackets and pay higher rates including these new Obamacare taxes.  How many people will this affect?  Twenty-five million … each year.

And if you think that the Socialist/Democrats will not decide that the Obamacare taxes should be applied to lower and lower tax brackets as time goes on you had better think again.  Remember Obama’s promise that nobody making less than $250,00 would pay one cent more in taxes?  Chalk that up next to the other broken promises including Obama’s promise of no mandate for Obamacare.

“If you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I’m going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You’ll still have choice of doctor. There’s no mandate involved.” – Oct. 7, 2008, debate, Nashville 

Anyone who does not buy health insurance that Obama approves of will pay a punitive tax.  Obama will punnish you financially for not thinking and acting the way he wants you to.  And if you refuse to pay Obama will send you to prison for doing the same thing that his treasury secretary did: tax evasion.  What a wonderful person Obama is: he gives his criminal friends powerful positions and criminalizes good Americans.

Furthermore, these taxes are being forced upon 1.2% of the population in order to to pay for something for a different 20% of the population.  The people who are being hit with tax increases of up to 32% will in no way benefit from Obamacare and yet they are being forced to pay for 40% of it.  Is that fair or just?  In every other minority situation this would be grounds for numerous law suits.  But not when Obama and the Socialist/Democrats want to steal money; then it is something good that they are doing.  This is a clear example of the tyranny that Obama and the socialists in government wants to impose upon Americans who followed their American Dream, worked hard, took risk, sacrificed and made their dream a reality.

William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center makes an excellent point.

“If health care is a benefit that is worth having, then it’s worth paying for, … This gives the impression that it’s only worth having if someone else pays for it.”

In other words, if people really thought they wanted health insurance they would pay for it themselves and not buy the other things that they have purchased instead up to this point (new cars, cell phones, HD TVs, $150 shoes, $10,000 rims, etc.).  Everyone will think that something someone else is paying for is a good thing.  If the government said that everyone in the country would chip in to buy you a house on the beach in Miami would you refuse or think it was a bad idea?  Of course not.  But what if that same government offered the same deal only going in the opposite direction and told you that you had to buy houses for 20% of Americans, would you think that was a good idea?  These issues are so simply wrong ethically and infeasable economically that it is stunning they are even being discussed.

How can this possibly be construed as a savings for Americans?  Perhaps Obama and the socialists mean savings in the sense that they are removing economic and social freedoms from Americans and “saving” those rights for themselves?

So how is Obamacare really going to be paid for?  By oppressing more and more Americans to a greater extent than ever before by seizing more of their money and power to make decisions regarding their own lives.  In a word: socialism.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was on NBC’s “meet the Press” today after being out of the spot light for a while…….he made a point on the show to maintain that the administration knows that the deficit is way too high…. but first things first…the economy needs fixing, then the jobs situation needs attending to, for political reasons and  with more jobs, increasing the flow of money into the system…..

He agreeded that the recovery has begun but it is uneven and will be slow in coming…..

The best thing he said besides acknowledging the need for job growth is the fact the small buisnesses need help also….most people do not know that the countries economy is runby samll business who vastly out number the mega corperations by multpiles……..

Tim “Tax Cheat” Geithner is the Obama Treasury Secretary who admitted to tax evasion.

In an interview with Meet the Press, Geithner reminded us of some of Obama’s broken promises to Americans. 

Geithner said that now the focus is on getting growth back on track.  Excuse me?  Now?  What has it been about for the past year that Obama has been telling everyone who would listen that his Socialist Stimulus package would create economic growth including 3.5M jobs?

Geithner said that the budget deficit is too high.  Really?  Wow, that is wonderful that he noticed that.  At the same time however Geithner also stated that another Socialist Stimulus package may be necessary. 

And how exactly is the Obama White House going to deal with this problem?  Meet the Press asked if the solution is going to mean Obama is going to be increasing taxes.  According to Geithner

“And we’re not at the point yet where we have to decide exactly what it’s going to take.”

What Geithner is telling Americans is that the government spending is out of control, the Socialist Stimulus did not achieve what Obama promised it would and things are still a mess only now America is even weaker than it was before. 

In contrast to the certainty that Obama had that his Socialist Stimulus would solve everything for everyone, apparently it did not and according to Geithner, they don’t know how to proceed although he hinted at two things: increasing taxes and Socialist Stimulus II.

Yes, Geithner said that government has spent too much money and the solution is to spend more money.

Geithner is wrong on just about everything he has said.  Even students in China litterally laughed at him when he tried to peddle this same sort of nonsense to them.

Geither was correct about the only way America can fix things: the private sector.

“‘You’re not going to see real recovery until it’s led by the private sector, by businesses,’ he said.”

Tax Cheat Timmy is right on target with that statement.  Unfortunately the socialist agenda of his boss, Obama, runs contrary to the success of individual Americans and the private sector in general.  Everything that Obama is doing is damaging to private businesses particularly small businesses where 70% of jobs are created. 

• Higher payroll taxes
• Higher income taxes
• Higher minimum wages
• Forced medical insurance
• And soon to be higher energy costs

Obama has been doing everything possible to destroy the ability of business to operate and grow.  All that and we have not even gotten into Timmy’s area of specialty: destroying the value of the US dollar via money printing.

Tax Cheat Timmy understands what is going on.  So why does he sound so foolish everytime he talks?  There is simply no way for him to reconcile what is good for Americans and American businesses and what Obama has been doing to advance his socialist agenda without sounding like an incompetent because none of it makes any sense. 

The reality is that all of this is designed to transform America into a socialist state where everyone is dependent upon the government for everything and there is zero chance of Timmy outing his boss, Obama.  Geithner does get it but he wants to keep his job so he has to cover for his boss otherwise he is going to “get it”.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

Officials in Washington today launched their biggest offensive yet in the war on runaway pay practices in the financial industry, targeting everyone from corporate executives to high-flying traders of complex securities.

The Federal Reserve proposed a sweeping review of pay policies at 28 of the nation’s largest banks as part of an effort to make sure employees are not tempted to make the kinds of bets that could put their company at risk of going under.

The central bank said it also planned to review compensation practices at the thousands of regional lenders that make up the bulk of the nation’s banking industry as part of its standard review process.

Separately, the Obama Administration’s so-called “pay czar,” Kenneth Feinberg, unveiled sweeping pay cuts for 136 top executives at the seven biggest companies that received a bailout.

Feinberg is demanding that AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, Chrysler, General Motors, GMAC and Chrysler Financial slash compensation packages for their top 25 most highly-compensated employees by about 50%.

The bulk of those cuts will come from annual salaries, which are expected to fall 90% on average.

Today’s developments represent what is perhaps the most sweeping push yet by Washington to rein in Wall Street’s pay practices. But some compensation experts warn that the actions could have a disastrous series of unintended consequences, including the loss of top employees to companies that are not subject to government restrictions.

What about Goldman?

But the moves by Feinberg, appointed the Treasury’s “Special Master for Compensation” in June, will not impact other financial giants like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley — firms that are on track to pay out record bonuses this year.

Revenue projections for those firms keep rising, and analysts say bonuses will be back on track for another record year following a one-year nosedive in 2008. Goldman Sachs said just last week that it set aside $16.7 billion for salaries, employee stock options and bonuses. That works out to about $526,814 for each and every one of Goldman’s more than 30,000 employees.

How is this possible? Or for that matter even legal?

The more than 600 companies that have received capital investments from the $700 billion bailout are subject to executive compensation curbs, including limits on perks and golden parachutes.

Companies like Goldman and JPMorgan, however, have paid the government back the billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money they received, so they’re no longer under the Treasury’s thumb.

Jobless claims jump

The number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance rose last week, snapping two weeks of significant declines.

There were 531,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Oct. 17, up 11,000 from an upwardly revised 520,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report. The week included the Columbus Day holiday.

In addition, the number of people who continue to collect benefits for one week or more fell by 98,000 to 5,923,000.

So why are continuing claims falling while initial claims are rising?

That’s because about 7,000 people a day exhaust their unemployment benefits. In fact, more than 200,000 people will fall off the rolls in October alone — and 1.3 million will lose their benefits before year’s end — if Congress doesn’t take action.

And one month after the House passed a bill extending unemployment benefits, the issue is still being debated in the Senate.

Democratic leaders in the Senate introduced a bill two weeks ago to lengthen benefits in all states by 14 weeks. Those that live in states with unemployment greater than 8.5% would receive an additional six weeks.

Senate Republicans want to add several amendments, including one that would pay for the extra benefits with stimulus funds rather than by extending a federal unemployment tax.

Leaders in both parties are now trying to negotiate a compromise.

Follow the money… on Twitter: @AndrewTorganCNN

This Blog and others have expressed concern over Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s failure to properly pay his taxes in the past.  Prior to being confirmed as Treasury Secretary it was discovered that Geithner did not pay certain taxes that were due.  He then paid them after he was “caught” during the confirmation process.

Secretary Geithner was recently interviewed by CNBC’s reporter and commentator Maria Bartiromo.  I post below a small part of that interview that related to the US dollar:

BARTIROMO: So what have you done specifically to safeguard the dollar’s decline?

Sec. GEITHNER: Well, I think, Maria, if you look generally, you know, I don’t–I don’t talk about developments in the exchange markets, but–I generally don’t do that, but I think if you look at what’s happened over the last year, you’ve seen really a lot of confidence in the US finance, a lot of confidence in the US economy.  When the crisis was at its peak, when people were most concerned about the risk of collapse and deflation, what happened then?  The world wanted to be in Treasuries, in the safest, most liquid markets, and you saw the dollar rise when people were most concerned about the future of the world.  And that is a very important thing.  It’s not something we can count on, so we need to make sure that we understand and we–and we continue to foster, and again, we’re going to do that.

And the press had the audacity to go after Sarah Palin’s adlibbing skills!  What was he saying?   It’ scary when our Treasury Secretary stutters and stammers about so.  It does not make me feel more comfortable about the direction of the US dollar.

After reading Secretary Geithner’s words, I am no longer sure that his nickname “Tax Cheat Tim” was fairly earned.  I now believe it’s possible that he really didn’t know how to use TurboTax.

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Even during his most frenzied days, when Congress is demanding answers or the president himself is calling, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner makes time to talk to a select group of powerful Wall Street bankers.

They are a small cadre of businessmen who have known and worked with Geithner f …

Source: Mr Geithner, Wall Street is on Line 1 (again)

How do you fix a broken watch if you don’t know how it works? That’s the question that Hillary Clinton and John McCain should have been asking during the 2008 campaign season, and that’s the question that should be relevant today. Either of these candidates would have brought their own kind of change to Washington, but voters — first the Democratic base and then the general electorate, myself included in the latter — believed that a man with little experience, an “outside the Beltway” reformer, would more effectively bring change to Washington. But how do you change Washington if you have no idea how it ticks?

I have more change in the pocket of my jeans than Barack Obama has brought to Washington. Well, I guess that’s not fair: He’s brought a massive change to the federal deficit. And he’s certainly changed the way we’re perceived around the world. We’re seen as kinder, gentler, and weaker than any of Obama’s predecessors since Jimmy Carter would have allowed us to be seen. We’ve “engaged the international community” by rejoining a UN Human Rights Council that includes some of the worst human rights abusers in the world, and we’re engaging with them by working to limit freedom of speech and expression. Change we can believe in, folks.

Yeah, I suppose when you really think about it, Barack Obama has brought change to Washington. He’s certainly changed the Democratic Party, by turning it into a house divided against itself. “But is he ready to lead?” That was a popular refrain during the campaign, and within the Democratic Party the answer has been an emphatic no. His refusal to get tough and unite competing factions, or to at least take sides, has torn his party to pieces. Progressives, Blue Dogs, and their corresponding Senate counterparts sense a leadership vacuum and are furiously competing with each other to fill it.

Meanwhile, as the governing party fails to govern, they accuse the minority party of being the real problem. Ask anyone I know, I have no great love for the Republican Party — but it’s not responsible for the Washington gridlock. How can Republicans be responsible, when Democrats have a huge majority in the House of Representatives, a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate, and a president in the White House? Voters aren’t stupid. They knew what they were doing in 2008; they expected that by giving Democrats overwhelming majorities by which to govern, they would actually govern. If they continue to fail, they will face heavy losses in 2010 and that minority scapegoat will become a real obstacle to their agenda and will have a much greater role in setting the agenda.

On the domestic front, President Change-and-Hope has left us with a sense of despair that we’re pretty familiar with. We’re told by his Treasury Secretary, his Federal Reserve Chairman, and his smorgasbord of czars that the recession is over. But to the nearly 10% of Americans who are unemployed — and that’s just the official number, reality on the ground is much worse — these pronouncements seem as hollow as “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” The so-called stimulus package has put a band-aid on an infected fiscal and economic wound. Without a robust jobs stimulus that includes corporate tax credits to incentivize hiring, the infection will only get worse until we wake up one day and, just like in 2007, our economy is dying.

Meanwhile, as we watch the slow bleed of jobs from our economy, Democrats have focused for months now on health care reform. No one is saying health care reform is unimportant, but is it really so important that it should take precedence over job growth? And if it is that important, then why can’t the Democratic supermajority in Congress unite behind reform and pass it so that we can move on and create a job growth package? And for God’s sake, stop talking about all these taxes: regressive consumption taxes; taxes on health insurance benefits; and maybe the worst thing I’ve seen yet, regressive taxes on medical devices that would disproportionately affect women.

Then, when — if? — we’re finally done with health care reform, could we maybe, y’know, take a look at that “war of necessity”? I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been skeptical about increasing troops in Afghanistan. The Afghan government leaves much to be desired, to say the least, and is unworthy of our protection. But when even Code Pink is halting its call for a timeline for withdrawal because the women of Afghanistan know that our withdrawal will mean a return to Taliban and al-Qaeda rule, maybe we should take note. And we should probably ask ourselves what losing in Afghanistan will mean. If we lose in Afghanistan, and the target of that war was Osama bin Laden, does that not mean our loss is his victory? It’s a rhetorical question, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Speaking of foreign policy, how is that Iran thing going? Oh, right, they’re still working on their nuclear weapons program. So where exactly are those crippling sanctions we’re told to expect? Members of the president’s own party seem to think that in this case patience is not a virtue. Even France is getting frustrated. While we’re at it, let’s not forget that the Iranian government was even less democratically elected this time than usual. Maybe our response to that should be something other than defunding a crucial human rights watchdog. I’m just sayin’.

With only brief and electorally inconsequential exceptions, I have aligned myself with the Democratic Party my entire life. In every election since March 23, 2002, I have voted a straight Democratic ticket. Until extremely recently, I even went so far as to declare myself a socialist. But the incompetence of both this and our previous administration is threatening to turn me into a libertarian faster than anything ever written by John Locke, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, or Friedrich Hayek. The Bush and Obama administrations are making the case for libertarianism — small, small government — more compelling than any libertarian ever could. And I can tell you this: I’ve voted straight ticket Democrat my whole life but if Obama doesn’t deliver some significant change by next November, then the only thing he’ll be changing is my voting record.

The clock is ticking. Or is it? It seems that, in Washington, their watches are broken and time is standing still as they pretend that November 2010 will never come. The question for President Obama: How do you fix a broken watch if you don’t know how it works?

I was able to access Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s phone records while holding office. My colleague John Crudele gave me access to the data and has written extensively on Paulson’s actions during the Lehman collapse.

It seems the secretary is very chatty with “market participants” during the Lehman Bros. turmoil and ultimate collapse.   “Market participants” as defined by Paulson involved Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman, John Mack of Morgan and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan.

If you recall last September, Washington was calling the shots during the market meltdown so it would stand to reason that Paulson was quarterbacking the financial team, yet he appears to be tipping off the defense (Wall Street) before the snap.

Google “John Crudele” to read his columns with all the details.

I scrutinized the events around the demise of Bear Stearns the previous March. To recap on March 7th 2008, Bear was suffering a liquidity drain. The Street was calling in all chits and not issuing new ones. Trading partners were pulling out of deals and the Bear trading desk was imploding.

Paulson is on the left coast in Palo Alto, CA. Paulson’s first call on that morning at 4:40am (I assume local time) is to Bob Steel former Goldman Vice Chairman with Paulson and soon to be heading up Wachovia. Steel like Paulson and Bob Rubin before them doing their time in DC to feed information back to  the mothership. He then calls Tim Geithner at the NY Fed, then JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Lehman’s Dick Fuld.

I can’t be sure if the decision for Dimon’s JPMorgan to backstop Bear’s trades was made as yet, but he spoke with Steel two more times that day to see how the Bear backstop was going.

It seems curious to me for the Treasury Secretary to be contacting competitors to Bear Stearns when the firm is floundering, unless Hank was running an M&A desk out of Treasury.

More on the Bear Take down in the next post.

For more on Wall and Washington and the economy see: http://mgray12.wordpress.com

The New Republic has often drawn my ire for its steadfast support of the status quo, its corporatism, its hostility to the consumer, and, at times, its open agitation for war. I therefore take all the more pleasure in directing you to this informative piece on the Federal Reserve and its bungling of our current crisis. One would hardly expect such clear analysis from a publication whose role is to manufacture consent for the Fed’s policies, and one hopes such criticism portends a more vigorous phase in the magazine’s long and illustrious career.

After a short outline of the Fed’s birth and original purpose, TNR focuses on the organization’s role in the various booms and busts of the past 30 years. Startlingly, TNR asserts the Fed’s centrality to the boom-bust cycle, overturning the conventional wisdom that our central bank is merely an observer, able to lend a push in one direction or a pull in another, but largely helpless to shape the overall landscape. In their words:

The decisions he made during the recent crisis weren’t necessarily the wrong decisions; indeed, they were, in many respects, the decisions he had to make. But these decisions, however necessary in the moment, are almost guaranteed to hurt our economy in the long run–which, in turn, means that more necessary but harmful measures will be needed in the future. It is a debilitating, vicious cycle. And at the center of this cycle is the Fed.

Strong words; and a few even stronger:

Enabled by the Fed, our system’s tolerance for risk is out of control. This is an increasingly dangerous system. It is only a matter of time until it collapses again.

The New Republic attributes this risk to the age-old complaint: bankers and CEOs are simply not punished for poor performance – on the contrary, they are rewarded with dollar amounts we mere mortals can hardly fathom. For evidence they cite Citigroup’s $100 million CEO pay packages to Robert Rubin and Chuck Prince – some of the main architects of our current boondoggle.

When discussing solutions, unfortunately, TNR once again displays its establishment colors. The recommendations it puts forth are mostly watered down, and appear limp when compared to the magnitude of the problems they address.

“Reasonable personal liability” for failing CEOs sounds nice, but will inevitably translate to a small slap on the wrist. Contrary to popular belief, there is not a large difference between a $200 million annual paycheck and a $100 million paycheck. What seems like “reasonable liability” to most CEOs still leaves them unconscionably rich. We must truly divorce ourselves from the idea that as a financial leader you can bankrupt thousands of people and still walk away rich as a Midas. If this means the CEO goes bankrupt with his shareholders – well, so be it. Nobody said banking was a safe business.

Likewise with their reccomendations regarding conflicts of interest. The New Republic advises a “cooling off” period for public servants who enter a regulatory position after making their fortune in the private sector (for example Hank Paulson, who retained his Goldman Sachs holdings while serving as Treasury Secretary).

This is not enough. If our crisis has taught us anything (something which remains to be seen), it is that financial ties run deep, and are often not erased by time. It is ludicrous to appoint to a regulatory position anyone who has ever had anything to do with the financial industry. Such conflicts of interest are inherent – “cooling off period” or no.

A weak finish to an otherwise outstanding article.