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2011
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November
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- Justin Bieber MUST STOP SINGING...!!!
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 30, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 29, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 28, 2011
- Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Thanksgiving 2011...!!!
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 23, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 22, 2011
- Nan Hayworth (R-NY-19) Can Drive Me Nuts...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 21, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Nov. 19 & 20, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, November 18, 2011
- Will Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-NY-19) Go Along?
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, November 17, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 16, 2011
- Why I Don't Trust Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-NY)
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 15, 2011
- Carl David VanDemark, Esq. v. Barker
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 14, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Nov. 12 & 13, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, November 11, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, November 10, 2011
- I Hate Mitt Romney
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 9, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 8, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, November 7, 2011
- Saturday Night's Cain-Gingrich Debate
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Nov. 5 & 6, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, November 4, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, November 3, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, November 2, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, November 1, 2011
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November
(31)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
9 comments:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204394804577012014136900828.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
* I'LL LET YOU GUYS READ THIS FOR YOURSELVES. IF THE LINK DOESN'T WORK JUST GOOGLE "WHY I REMAIN A GLOBAL-WARMING SKEPTIC" + "FRED SINGER."
* BTW... DR. FRED SINGER IS PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AND DIRECTOR THE OF THE SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY PROJECT WITH SPECIALTIES IN ATMOSPHERIC AND SPACE PHYSICS.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wall-streets-resurgent-prosperity-frustrates-its-claims-and-obamas/2011/10/25/gIQAKPIosM_print.html
President Obama calls people who work on Wall Street “fat cat bankers” and his reelection campaign will try to harness public frustration with Wall Street.
* HERE'S THE THING, THOUGH... (*DRUM ROLL*)... READ ON:
During Obama’s tenure, Wall Street has roared back even as the larger economy has struggled.
The largest banks are larger today than when Obama took office and are returning to the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data. ... Since Obama became president, the largest, $100 billion-plus banks, which were at the center of the financial crisis, have grown in size by 10%.
Wall Street firms - either independent companies or the high-flying trading arms of banks - are doing even better. They’ve made more profit in the first two and a half years of the Obama administration than they did during the entire Bush administration...
(*SNORT*)
* FOLKS... YA JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!
Behind this turnaround are government policies that saved the financial sector from collapse...
* OH, PLEASE - GIVE IT A REST! BUSHBAMA IS FOR THE ELITES - WALL STREET, NOT MAIN STREET.
[G]overnment policies...gave banks and other financial firms huge advantages on the path to recovery. For example, the federal government invested hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in banks, money that the firms used for risky investments on which they made huge profits.
(*SIGH*)
Reviving the financial system was necessary for preventing an even deeper economic recession.
* BULLSHIT! TOTAL UNADULTERATED PROPAGANDA WITH NO FACTUAL FOUNDATION. THIS IS THE MEDIA ELITE ECHOING THE POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL ELITES, NOTHING MORE.
A recent study by two professors at the University of Michigan found that banks, instead of significantly increasing lending after being bailed out, used taxpayer money to invest in risky securities to profit from short-term price movements. The study found that bailed-out banks increased their returns by nearly 10% as a result.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Even before Obama took office, the Bush administration pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into banks with few restrictions.
* AND THAT WAS WRONG! (TWO WRONGS, HOWEVER, DON'T MAKE A RIGHT; BEYOND THIS, DOUBLING DOWN AS OBAMA HAS DONE ON THE WORST OF THE BUSH FINANCIAL POLICIES MAKES OBAMA DOUBLY BLAMABLE!
The Federal Reserve, which is independent of the administration, lowered interest rates, allowing firms to borrow money cheaply and trade with it, booking massive profits.
* NOTE: BUSH APPOINTED BERNANKE. OBAMA REAPPOINTED BERNANKE. WHAT'S THAT TELL YOU, FOLKS...?!
The Fed also unveiled lending programs that bolstered stock and bond markets and paid banks that kept reserves with the central bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guaranteed bank debts, making it easier for the firms to attract private investors.
* AS IS USUALLY THE CASE, "BIPARTISAN" POLICY TENDS TO REWARD THE POLITICIANS AND THEIR FRIENDS AND SCREW THE ORDINARY TAXPAYER.
“The too-big-to-fail banks got bigger profits and avoided failure because of trillions of dollars of loans directly from the Federal Reserve,” said Linus Wilson, assistant professor of finance at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “Today their profits are boosted by lower borrowing costs because their managers and creditors expect a Fed lifeline when markets get jittery.”
* NOTHING CHANGES... (SO MUCH FOR "HOPE" AND "CHANGE.")
Banks have also benefited from the massive increase during the recession in unemployment insurance, which is a joint federal and state program. Increasingly, banks offer debit cards to the unemployed to collect their benefits. These debit cards carry a range of fees that bolster bank bottom lines.
* ALL WHILE ENCOURAGING PRICE INCREASES ON THE PART OF THE PRODUCTIVE BUSINESS SO AS TO ACCOUNT FOR THE DEBIT CHARGES INCURRED! AGAIN... WHETHER THE "LITTLE GUY" KNOWS IT OR NOT, HE'S NOT GETTING ANYTHING FOR FREE - HE'S PAYING FOR IT IN THE FORM OF HIGHER PRICES!!!
The largest banks, which include Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, earned $34 billion in profit in the first half of the year, nearly matching what they earned in the same period in 2007 and more than in the same period of any other year. Securities firms - the trading arms of big banks and hundreds of other independent firms - have fared even better. They’ve generated at least $83 billion in profit during the past two and a half years, compared with $77 billion during the entire Bush administration... Compensation at these firms is also near highs. Financial firms paid about $20.8 billion in bonuses for work done in 2010...
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
In New York City, the average Wall Street salary in 2010 grew 16.1% to $361,330, five and a half times the average salary of a private-sector worker in the city.
(*TAKING A BRIEF TIME OUT TO BARF*)
Obama has...adopted a friendlier tone this year toward Wall Street and corporate America in general. Obama hired a J.P. Morgan Chase banker, William M. Daley, as his chief of staff. [The bringer of hope and promiser of change] has actively courted financial executives for campaign donations, including inviting them to a campaign gathering at the White House. He has attracted more money for his campaign and for the Democratic National Committee from financial firm employees than all of the GOP candidates combined - a total of $15.6 million.
* FOLKS... THIS MAN IS A SNAKE OIL SALESMAN. HE'S A FAKE, PHONY, FRAUD. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA TAKE TO CONVINCE SOME OF YOU THAT AS BAD AS THE REPUBLICANS ARE, THE DEMOCRATS ARE FAR, FAR WORSE.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c6eb16defd83bb49882e3187c9eea39e.201&show_article=1
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao will meet Monday to discuss expanding their loose Central Asian security alliance to include Pakistan and Iran.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* OH, YEAH... THAT HILLARY CLINTON... MAN, SHE'S DOING A FINE, FINE JOB AS SECRETARY OF STATE!
(*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*)
Russia has previously billed the alliance as a regional alternative to NATO and discussed at past meetings the option of including other regional powers in its ranks.
* HEY, KIDS... LET ME ASK YOU... SINCE NATO RESERVES TO ITSELF THE RIGHT TO MILITARILY INTERVENE WHEREVER AND WHENEVER IT SEES FIT (THE BALKANS... LIBYA)... WHAT PRINCIPLE DO YOU SUPPOSE WILL BE CITED TO STOP THIS RUSSIAN-CHINESE ALLIANCE FROM DOING LIKEWISE...? HMM...??? ANY THOUGHTS...??? ANY THOUGHTS AT ALL...???
Putin will host host Wen in his native city of Saint Petersburg almost exactly 10 years after the two countries joined forces with the four ex-Soviet Central Asian republics to form the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
* AGAIN, FOLKS... I WAS BLASTING BUSH LONG AGO FOR SQUANDERING OPPORTUNITIES TO KEEP RUSSIA ON "OUR" SIDE RATHER THAN HAVING HER ALIGN HERSELF WITH CHINA... LET ALONE PAKISTAN AND IRAN!
* AGAIN, FOLKS... NOTE THE PATTERN: BUSH FUCKS SOMETHING UP AND OBAMA COMES IN AND... FUCKS IT UP TWICE AS BAD!
"We are talking about Pakistan and Iran, which have applied for membership," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters ahead of the talks. "India is also intent on joining, and Afghanistan has said it wants to be an observer," the Russian spokesman said.
* CAN YOU IMAGINE IF OBAMA AND HILLARY LOSE INDIA...?!?!
(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE COMING ON*)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/282280/corporate-collaborators-mark-steyn
Way back in 1968, after the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Mayor Daley declared that his forces were there to “preserve disorder.”
I believe that was one of Hizzoner’s famous malapropisms.
(*SMILE*) (*CHUCKLE*)
Forty-three years later Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland, and the Oakland city council have made “preserving disorder” the official municipal policy.
* THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE ABOUT TO READ, FOLKS...
On Wednesday, the “Occupy Oakland” occupiers rampaged through the city, shutting down the nation’s fifth-busiest port, forcing stores to close, terrorizing those residents foolish enough to commit the reactionary crime of “shopping,” destroying ATMs, spraying the Christ the Light Cathedral with the insightful observation “F**k,” etc. And how did the Oakland city council react? The following day they considered a resolution to express their support for “Occupy Oakland” and to call on the city administration to “collaborate with protesters.”
* ONE... MORE... TIME:
The following day they considered a resolution to express their support for “Occupy Oakland” and to call on the city administration to “collaborate with protesters.”
* NICE... (*SIGH*)
That’s “collaborate” in the Nazi-occupied-France sense: The city’s feckless political class are collaborating with anarchists against the taxpayers who maintain them in their sinecures.
They’re not the only ones.
When the rumor spread that the Whole Foods store, of all unlikely corporate villains, had threatened to fire employees who participated in the protest, the regional president, David Lannon, took to Facebook: “We totally support our Team Members participating in the General Strike today - rumors are false!”
(But, despite his “total support,” they trashed his store anyway, breaking windows and spraypainting walls.)
As the Oakland Tribune reported: A man who witnessed the Whole Foods attack, but asked not to be identified, said he was in the store buying an organic orange when the crowd arrived. The experience was surreal, the man said. “They were wearing masks. There was this whole mess of people, and no police here. That was weird.”
No, it wasn’t. It was municipal policy.
Men’s Wearhouse in Oakland...printed up a huge poster declaring “We stand with the 99%” and announcing they’d be closed that day. In return, they got their windows smashed.
(*LAUGHING MY ASS OFF*)
* BUT BACK TO THE GOVERNMENT...
At first glance, an alliance of anarchists and government might appear to be somewhat paradoxical. But the formal convergence in Oakland makes explicit the movement’s aims: They’re anarchists for statism, wild free-spirited youth demanding more and more total government control of every aspect of life - just so long as it respects the fundamental human right to sloth.
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
What’s happening in Oakland is a logical exercise in class solidarity: The government class enthusiastically backing the breakdown of civil order is making common cause with the leisured varsity class, the thuggish union class, and the criminal class in order to stick it to what’s left of the beleaguered productive class. It’s a grand alliance of all those societal interests that wish to enjoy in perpetuity a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. Only the criminal class is reasonably upfront about this. The rest - the lifetime legislators, the unions defending lavish and unsustainable benefits, the “scholars” whiling away a somnolent half decade at Complacency U - are obliged to dress it up a little with some hooey about “social justice” and whatnot.
But that’s all it takes to get the media and modish if insecure corporate entities to string along[!]
Whole Foods can probably pull it off. So can Ben & Jerry’s, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch corporation Unilever that nevertheless successfully passes itself off as some sort of tie-dyed Vermont hippie commune. But a chain of stores that sells shirts, ties, the garb of the corporate lackey has a tougher sell. The class that gets up in the morning, pulls on its lousy Men’s Wearhouse get-up, and trudges off to work has to pay for all the other classes, and the strain is beginning to tell.
Let it be said that the “occupiers” are right on the banks: They shouldn’t have been bailed out.
* AGREED...!!! (I ONLY WISH OBAMA, THE DEMOCRATS, BUSH, AND THE RINOs HAD AGREED. BUT THEY DIDN'T! HILLARY FAVORED THE BAILOUT... GINGRICH FAVORED THE BAILOUT... MCCAIN FAVORED THE BAILOUT... PELOSI FAVORED THE BAILOUT... REID FAVORED THE BAILOUT... BOEHNER FAVORED THE BAILOUT... OBAMA FAVORED THE BAILOUT...)
* HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE SOME OF THE OCCUPY WALL STREET CROWD?! WHY AREN'T THEY "OCCUPYING" THE CAPITAL, THE WHITE HOUSE, AND ALL THE SENATE AND HOUSE OFFICE BUILDINGS...?!?! WHY AREN'T THEY "OCCUPYING" THE WASHINGTON HQs OF THE RNC AS WELL AS THE DNC...?!?! I'LL TELL YOU WHY... BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING CLUELESS...!!!
America has one of the most dysfunctional banking systems in the civilized world, and most of its allegedly indispensable institutions should have been allowed to fail. But the Occupy Oakland types have no serious response, other than the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by government-funded inertia.
America is seizing up before our eyes: The decrepit airports, the underwater property market, the education racket, the hyper-regulated business environment. Yet curiously the best example of this sclerosis is the alleged “revolutionary” movement itself. It’s the voice of youth, yet everything about it is cobwebbed. It’s more like an open-mike karaoke night of a revolution than the real thing. I don’t mean just the placards with the same old portable quotes by Lenin et al., but also, say, the photograph in Forbes of Rachel, a 20-year-old “unemployed cosmetologist” with remarkably uncosmetological complexion, dressed in pink hair and nose ring as if it’s London, 1977, and she’s killing time at Camden Lock before the Pistols gig.
(Are America’s revolting youth so totally pathetically moribund they can’t even invent their own hideous fashion statements?)
At heart, Oakland’s occupiers and worthless political class want more of the same fix that has made America the Brokest Nation in History: They expect to live as beneficiaries of a prosperous Western society without making any contribution to the productivity necessary to sustain it. This is the “idealism” that the media are happy to sentimentalize, and that enough poseurs among the corporate executives are happy to indulge - at least until the window-smashing starts.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577016212664520008.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
President Barack Obama told us Jon Corzine was looking out for the little guy.
(*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)
Never mind Mr. Corzine's 1% pedigree as a former Goldman Sachs chairman.
Never mind how Mr. Corzine essentially bought himself a U.S. Senate seat, spending his personal Goldman Sachs loot in one of the most expensive senatorial races ever.
Never mind the dough Mr. Corzine stuffed in Mr. Obama's pocket.
Here's what Mr. Obama said in October 2009 while stumping for Mr. Corzine's re-election bid as the Democratic governor of New Jersey: "You've had an honorable man, a decent man, an honest man, at the helm of this state. … He's fought for what matters to ordinary folks."
(*SARCASTIC THUMBS UP WITH A HUGE SMIRK*)
* THE PRESIDENT CONTINUED...
"Jon knows these are challenging times. This is why he got into public service. He didn't do it for the paycheck."
"This crisis…came about because of the same theories, the same lax regulation, the same trickle-down economics that the other guy's party has been peddling for years."
"Jon's got the mop and he's cleaning up after somebody else's mess."
* OH, LORD... YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP...!!!
Now someone else has the mop, and they're cleaning up Mr. Corzine's mess.
After losing his gubernatorial bid to Republican Chris Christie, Mr. Corzine became chief of a $41 billion investment firm called MF Global, trading derivatives and other wacky securities that led to the financial collapse of 2008.
The "MF," in case you are thinking what I had thought, stands for Managed Futures. But after the firm filed for bankruptcy last week, Mr. Corzine will spend the rest of his life managing his past. The company announced his resignation on Friday.
I can remember when Mr. Corzine was hot on the trail of Enron while serving in the U.S. Senate. He crafted legislation to make sure such a reckless financial calamity would never, ever happen again. But guess what? It keeps happening, again and again. And this time it happened to him. It's as if he never read the same ol' story The Wall Street Journal has been writing for decades: A guy with an enormous ego, and a completely unjustifiable compensation package, makes reckless bets with other people's money. Heads he wins. Tails everyone loses.
(*NOD*)
Regulators are asleep on the job. Hundreds of millions of dollars go missing. The FBI and the conflicted regulators who had turned a blind eye to the debacle are finally forced to launch pointless investigations. And the world can only speculate as to whether the guy who should be held responsible, but probably won't, is clueless or criminal.
(*SIGH*) (*NOD*)
In an Oct. 25 press release, Mr. Corzine discussed the nearly $6.3 billion he pumped into countries that most other investors are running away from: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Belgium. "We remain confident that we have the resources and expertise to continue to successfully manage these exposures to what we believe will be a positive conclusion in December 2012," Mr. Corzine said.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Some people think you have to be a Republican to be this delusional while trading derivatives, but it appears that reckless gambling and shameless looting will continue no matter who is in charge.
"One of the things you've got in Jon Corzine is somebody who tells it to you straight," Mr Obama said.
And you can take that to the bank … I mean, the bank … ruptcy court.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/11/05/medallion-madness/D7MrNfgXnZbPTcGQupG1AP/story.html
Here's one for the Guinness World Records people: Two New York City taxi medallions were sold last month for $1 million apiece.
That’s [$1,000,000] paid for the right to operate a car as a taxicab in The City That Never Sleeps.
It’s also an expensive lesson in the harm caused to consumers and would-be entrepreneurs by over-regulation and the strangling of competition.
By law, every cab in New York has to have an official medallion - the numbered metal plate nailed to the hood - but the number of medallions is fixed at 13,237.
When the city first issued taxi medallions in the 1930s, they cost $10 each. But before long the demand for taxi ownership had outstripped the limited supply of medallions. Since City Hall wasn’t issuing new ones, the only way to get a medallion was to buy one from an existing owner. Over time the value of those metal tags went through the stratosphere.
In the years after World War II, a New York City taxi medallion could be had for $2,500. By the mid-1970s the going price was $50,000. In 1985, when a medallion changed hands for $100,000, it made the front page of The New York Times.
That sale was arranged by a “taxi financing specialist’’ named Nat Goldbetter, a one-time cabdriver who discovered he could make a better living arranging medallion sales on the secondary market. By coincidence, it was Goldbetter who arranged the sale of the million-dollar medallions last month...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
In a rational market, Goldbetter’s industry wouldn’t even exist. A taxi medallion, after all, has no intrinsic value - it is merely the government’s permission to use a car to transport passengers for a fee.
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
This is a classic illustration of what economists call “rent-seeking’’ - manipulating the political system to gain economic benefits without providing any additional value to society in exchange.
Imposing caps on the number of taxis enriches existing owners with windfall profits. But by making the cost of cab ownership obscenely high, it prevents countless would-be cabbies from going into business for themselves. And by stifling competition, it drives fares through the roof while lowering the quality and availability of service.
New York isn’t alone in blighting its taxi market like this. In Boston, which also adopted a medallion system in the 1930s, the little metal plates now sell for $400,000 and cab fares for most rides are the highest of any big city in North America. The number of cabs is limited to 1,825, which is why trying to get a taxi in Boston’s outlying neighborhoods can be so tough. Cabbies - most of whom can’t afford a medallion of their own and instead must pay stiff fees to lease somebody else’s - naturally gravitate to the most lucrative routes.
Even more obnoxious is the government-protected monopoly in Milwaukee, which in 1991 imposed a citywide cap of just 321 taxis, yielding a ratio of 1 taxi for every 1,850 residents. (By comparison, the ratio in Boston is about 1 to 340; in Washington, D.C., where the number of cabs is not artificially limited, it’s 1 to 90.) The cost of a taxi permit has soared from $85 to $150,000, which is well above the price of an average Milwaukee house.
“In the classic story of entrepreneurship, someone starts a taxi business in order to save up enough money to buy a house,’’ said attorney Anthony Sanders. “In Milwaukee, you need to save up enough money to buy a house just to start a taxi business.’’
Sanders works for the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that litigates around the country in defense of the right of individuals to earn an honest living. The institute, which successfully defended reforms that ended a taxi cartel in Minneapolis, recently filed a lawsuit challenging Milwaukee’s cap on taxi permits as unjust and unconstitutional.
Can you imagine City Hall trying to fix the number of shoe stores or Web designers or CPAs allowed to operate in town?
Arbitrary limits on the number of taxicabs should be considered just as ridiculous.
The government has no right playing favorites, or crushing competition.
* BUT THAT'S WHAT IT DOES... AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN... WHILE WE POOR SUCKERS BEAR THE BURDEN...
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