Jack & Jill Politics

EVENING OPEN THREAD IS UP

Bankers' soaring pay is an investment in the economy, Lord Griffiths tells public meeting on City morality

One of the City's leading figures has suggested that inequality created by bankers' huge salaries is a price worth paying for greater prosperity.

In remarks that will fuel the row around excessive pay, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff.

Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all".

He added that he knew what inequality felt like after spending his childhood in a mining town in Wales. Both his grandfathers were miners who had to retire from work through injury.

With public anger mounting at the forecast of bumper bonuses for bankers only a year after the industry was rescued by the taxpayer, he said bankers' bonuses should be seen as part of a longer-term investment in Britain's economy. "I believe that we should be thinking about the medium-term common good, not the short-term common good ... We should not, therefore, be ashamed of offering compensation in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people," he said.

Griffiths said that many banks would relocate abroad if the government cracked down on bonus culture. "If we said we're not going to have as big bonuses or the same bonuses as last year, I think then you'd find that lots of City firms could easily hive off their operations to Switzerland or the far east," he said.

Public must learn to 'tolerate the inequality' of bonuses, says Goldman Sachs vice-chairman

The core of America is the middle class. And Harvard Law Professor and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel COP (the COP is to oversee TARP, the Troubled Assets Relief Program) Elizabeth Warren tells us that the core of America is being carved up, hollowed out. In her words, "I Believe Middle Class is Under Terrific Assault...Middle class became the turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner" of the financial elite. Elizabeth Warren is more than just right.

Call it for what it is. It has more names than Satan. Call it plundering. Call it pillaging. Call it extortion, Call it fraud. Call it racketeering. Call it the financial raping of the middle class. Call it criminal. Consider the following. Middle class never consented to this financial rape. They vehemently protested it when the gov't first proposed a $700 bailout of the financial system called TARP in Septermber 2008. Yet what did Congress and our government do? They went ahead and did it anyway. This boils down to one thing, taxation without representation. Our votes do not matter anymore.

This is happening because the US government is allowing it to happen. It is one thing for the government to raise the social safety nets for the poor, elderly and such. It is entirely another to raise the social safety nets for the financial elitists at taxpayer expense. But that is exactly what the government has done in the past year. They have rescued a financial system at the expense of everyone else. Mythical constructs and messages that financial companies are Too Big to Fail, systemic risk is too great, No More Lehman Brothers have been created by the powers that be. And it is in the name of No More Lehman Brothers and Too Big to Fail that Middle Class America is being carved up and hollowed out.

A New Civil Rights Movement is Afoot for the Middle Class

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When feeling the burden from the underbelly in the USofA everyone wants civil rights just like the 60s movement that many AAs are still trying to realize.

Another way to look at this issue; Imperialism.

Didn't see your post before posting GS Emperor's "tolerate the inequality" comment. Now that sounds like imperialism or just a tin ear?

HUH?

File this in the "you're a dumbass" files:

NEWARK, N.J. — A private security guard at Newark Liberty International Airport was arrested on charges of threatening Barack Obama the night before the president was to fly there.

A Continental Airlines employee reported overhearing John Brek make threatening comments at an airport coffee cart Tuesday afternoon.

The 55-year-old security guard was arrested several hours later, Port Authority spokesman John Kelly said. He denied making the threats, said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service.

Obama came to New Jersey on Wednesday to campaign for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

Brek allowed police to search his Linden home and officers found 43 firearms, Kelly said. The firearms were still being processed, but no illegal guns had been found.

A message left by The Associated Press at Brek's home Wednesday was not immediately returned. His father, John, told The Star-Ledger of Newark that his son has the guns because he's an avid hunter.

Air Force One landed at the Newark airport shortly before 5 p.m. under tight security. Dozens of Secret Service and Port Authority police officers were visible, and sharpshooters were positioned on roofs of nearby buildings.

"We take every threat very seriously," Wiley said. "We don't have the luxury of ignoring even the allegation of a threat."

Brek is employed by Floral Park, N.Y.-based FJC Security Services Inc., which has a contract with the Port Authority. Its employees screen airport workers to ensure they have proper credentials, Kelly said.

Brek was arrested by Port Authority Police and charged under state law with making terroristic threats against the president. He has not been arrested on federal charges, Wiley said.

Bail has been set at $100,000 for Brek, who faces five years in prison for the third-degree felony charge, according to Essex County Prosecutor's Office spokesman Paul Loriquet. He said Brek is being held in the Essex County jail and is to be arraigned Thursday.

Patrick J. Conroy, executive vice president of FJC, said the company is working with authorities investigating the alleged threat. Brek has been assigned to the Newark airport for the majority of his six years with the company, Conroy said.

under the jail...stop playing with these mofos

ProPublica’s recent investigative piece takes a fresh look at the makeup of the swarm of health care lobbyists peddling their influence on Capital Hill, as lawmakers work to repair the broken health care system in our country. Not surprisingly, at least 25 lawmakers and aides involved with crafting the industry friendly Medicare Part D Bill, the prescription drug program for seniors, four years ago, have now returned to the Hill to lobby for the interests of the health care industry.

The Medicare Part D Bill was written to benefit the powerful pharmaceutical lobby and not the America taxpayers. Amid heavy lobbying from the pharmaceutical industry, the Medicare Part D Bill specifically prohibited Medicare from directly negotiating for lower drug prices with the drug industry. The only reason to craft the bill prohibiting price negotiations, was to benefit the drug industry, ensuring drug prices would remain high.

The big giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry was ushered through Congress by Billy Tauzin, the former Republican representative from Louisiana and chair of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, who is now president of PhRMA, the powerful drug industry’s lobbying group.

Just a few months after the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill was signed into law, Tauzin began negotiating with PhRMA for his lucrative position. Along with Tauzin, 14 congressional aides involved with the drug industry friendly Medicare Bill left their positions to work for the pharmaceutical industry.

As noted by ProPublica, “…the prices the government pays for drugs through Part D are about 30 percent higher on average than the prices it pays for drugs for Medicaid recipients, according to a 2008 report [1] by the House Committee on Oversight.”

Now, many of those former aides and lawmakers are back to ensure that the pharmaceutical industry retains its ability to reap windfall profits when seniors are moved from Medicaid to Medicare, and to torpedo any language allowing the legalization of re-importing cheaper drugs from Canada.

According to ProPublica some of the main cast of characters, include the head of PhRMA Billy Tauzin, who struck a controversial deal offering a concession worth about $30 billion over the next 10 years, with the Obama administration and the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Max Baucus. Other lawmakers have stated they are not bound by that agreement.

Some of the other returning Medicare Part D players, include former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., who fought against allowing drug prices to be negotiated in Medicare Part D, former Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., who helped negotiate the final version of Part D, Thomas Scully, the former Medicare chief who helped design Part D and many other legislative aides. All of the above mentioned Part D lawmakers left office soon after the bill was passed to either start their own lobbying firms or work for one.

This revolving door phenomenon between Congress and lobbying firms has become commonplace. Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics said, “They’re in Congress, out of Congress – then back lobbying their former colleagues.”

And every time a major bill passes there is a mass exodus of lawmakers and staffers to lobbying firms that have an interest in the future implementation of the bill.


Medicare Part D Lawmakers and Aides Resurface as Lobbyists to Influence Health Reform

I do not know if anyone is watching CNBC's Money Honey trying to snow House Speaker Pelosi. It's like watching a fight with Rapier's all slicing. Money isn't backing down but she's bleeding like Tex Cobb.
video will be posted when available.

I'll say this based on Pelosi's TV presence and ability to deal w/ questioners I hope she runs for the next Democrat Senate Seat in California. She'll win and if they don't give her Harry Reids job, if he still has it, it will be the biggest mistake in Senate history. She'll be delivering 55 votes on every issue like the sun comes up in the morning.

"Money isn't backing down but she's bleeding like Tex Cobb."

+1 rep just for that quote alone, LOL.

Keep Speaker Pelosi right where she is at.Run Van Jones for the mayor of Oakland and then in 2012 take Feinstein out.Senator Van Jones has a nice ring to it.

Here is the Pelosi interview:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=130314064...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=130316816...

thank you

But Interracial Prostitution Is OK!

Sen. David "Diaper Boy" Vitter (R-LA) is the only senior elected official from Louisiana who has not denounced the local justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple. And he won't do it here, either.
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2009/10/but-interr...

Rachel Maddow tweets about Ta-Neishi Coates:

http://twitter.com/maddow/status/5048299027

House Judiciary Committee voted today to strip health insurance companies of their exemption to antitrust laws. If this passes as law healthinsurance costs may come down just on the competetion alone.

this really is huge

This morning there were economic posts about breaking down the too big too fail(TBTF) institutions. This article on why they shouldn't be dismantled and other approaches should be used.
Hat tip calculatedrisk.com

rikyrah

There are two hundred comments on this article alone and almost all on point. this is one that follows real estate issues for the most part.

thanks Rob.

Obama is to order salary cuts for AIG and other big firms who got gov't bailouts: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/21/795626...

There goes ANOTHER talking point. Boy, that Obama has been a busy bee today!

Dealing with student loan stuff today. Ugh. I am so tempted to just consolidate with the government if I can instead of dealing with three separate organizations since accessgroup sold my undergrad loan to Chase and part of my grad loans to the gov't.

What's a Nuclear Secret?
And why would Israel need one?
http://www.slate.com/id/2233013/

but...but...the 51st state is our friend.

Keeping Israel's "secret" means only Iran is the nuclear threat in the region and it allows Israel to have cause justifying its bombing of Iran's facilities.

IN ATLANTA, STRING OF BLACK MAYORS MAY BE BROKEN

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/us/22atlanta....

Might happen. And if it does, it's a testament to Black progressive voters taking a thoughtful and pragmatic political action. Black voters are constantly being mocked and maligned for voting "lock step" with the Democratic Party (and that we're racists because we voted for President Obama). I can't think of a better way to shatter that stereotype, than for Black progressives to elect a White female Republican.

Unfortunately, Black conservative bloggers and other professional Toms are doing their level best to give credit to Atlanta's White voters.

The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse

10/21/2009
Pat Buchanan Hearts the Oath Keepers, Does Not Heart Black People:
While one should not advocate kicking an old man in the nuts, neither should one advocate not kicking an old man in the nuts. Especially when that old man is Pat Buchanan. For surely, some great, karmic justice would be fulfilled if somebody walked onto the set during one of the 28 hours a day Buchanan's on as an analyst on MSNBC and used a steel-toed boot to just swiftly kick his pendulous balls into his gelatinous gut, if only to hear him cry out as he curled onto the floor and vomited.
Read More
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

go rude

This does not look good.
As the U.S. postpones a decision on Afghanistan, Gerald Posner reports on a new secret weapon in the arsenal of the Taliban and Al Qaeda: getting the Army addicted to their cheap heroin.

Forty years ago, the Vietnam War was partly undermined by heroin addiction among U.S. troops. Surely mindful of that, the Taliban and al Qaeda are now using Afghanistan’s bountiful heroin supplies as a tactical weapon. An internal U.S. intelligence report has concluded that the two groups are targeting American troops in an effort to undermine their effectiveness, while raising cash to pay for new recruits and weaponry, a U.S. intelligence official tells The Daily Beast.

It’s a logical tactic. The drug is plentiful, cheap—less than $1 for a day’s supply—and potent. And while Army officials publicly dismiss talk of any surging drug problem, some privately express concern about the possibility of increased drug use among bored and susceptible young soldiers
Read More
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/...

It's plausible.

But it sounds more like propaganda designed to make the headline Obama's (Vietnam) War stick.

It's the kind of headline that unifies the left and the right.

If you can't make him Hitler (who forgot this notion came from some Clinton loyalists during the campaign?), then make him Lyndon Johnson.

There's an idea.

Not again. Tawana II?

Woman in W.Va. torture case says she lied

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33414600/ns/us_news...

I think the perps who committed the crime already pleaded guilty and there was enough evidence to convict anyway.

Apparently, the young woman is known to have mental problems. Her mom (who has since died) called her "slow." Also, other relatives and friends have stated that she has psychological issues.

This is not to say that what she is claiming may not be factual. But, I think, her mental capabilities should be taken into account.

Besides this, not only was there more than enough evidence to convict, 7 of the accused confessed.