Janet Tavakoli On Warren Buffett's Love For Bailouts
Making billions off the taxpayer dime.
Janet destroys Uncle Warren for bailout hypocrisy and throws a punch at Berkshire's Charlie Munger for general TARP stupidity.
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Warren Buffett Jumped the Squid
By Janet Tavakoli
Fed Economists Gara Afonso and Anna Kovner with MIT finance professor Antoinette Schoar offer new evidence suggesting that although credit terms were tougher for large underperforming banks in the two days after Lehman's bankruptcy, the much-hyped market "freeze" was a myth.
Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, urged Colonists not to trust the words of "interested men" tied by money and status to British royalty.
Today's interested men defend the bailouts and subsequent absence of felony indictments.
Munger says we shouldn't be "bitching about a little bailout," we should have wondered why the bailout wasn't even bigger.
These enemies of the people include Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
Buffett heaped praise on Berkshire's investments in Goldman and Wells Fargo (among others), while overlooking problematic activities within these bailed-out banks. Warren deserves great credit for donating most of his wealth to charity, but one must deduct serious points because some of "his" wealth was appropriated from unwilling fellow citizens.
Charlie Munger's War
Munger suggests we shouldn't be "bitching about a little bailout;" we should have wondered why the bailout wasn't even bigger.
Taxpayers have already been saddled with crushing debt that transferred benefits to those most connected with Washington. Bloomberg News estimates the financial rescue already approaches $12.8 trillion in combined lending, spending, guarantees, and commitments. Taxpayer-subsidized banks that played a key role in getting us into this mess continue to pay their officers handsomely for failure. There were alternatives to Washington's largesse: controlled bankruptcy, conservatorship, and restructuring.
See: Alternative to Treasury Bailouts: One that does not Violate Democracy
Washington's overheated money printing to support the bailouts has the nation in the grips of stranguflation. Lost jobs and reduced salaries combined with rising food and energy prices feel like hyperinflation to those most in need. Meanwhile, deflation has hit middle class investments and pension funds, and uncertainty about the future leaves them vulnerable. Third World America reveals that some former middle class Americans are using credit cards charging high interest rates to buy essential items including food.
Did Warren Buffett Sell A Million Shares Of Moody's Based On Inside Information?
Jan 10, 2012 at 5:43 PM
Reader Comments (32)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/lawmakers-seek-distance-f_n_734800.html
The only reason tea partiers are going to vote for the GOP is the gop claims to be listening...if the DEMS would cut spending they would get tea party support...biden is an idiot...
DB, do you think she'd go out with me if I gave her Jamie Dimon's head in a Treasure Island bag?
Is someone seriously pushing Sarah Palin? Her IQ Is like 81. She's supra-retarded, get it? Go on youtube and search "Katie Couric Sarah Palin." We're in a motherfucking depression, and you think a brain stem is our answer?
Before this is over there may be more than 2 heads harvested.
The U.S. is a vicious place, filled with Col. Kurtz types, people who take matters into their own hands. America's dissenting class is as dark and rich as its soil. Turnover time hasn't come just yet. But it will. When it does, it ain't gonna be good for the PTB.
There's a book called The Rich and the Super Rich. A little windy, but good. Cliff Notes conclusion: the smart eat the rich. Ask your bookie if he disagrees and get back to me.
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Cheyenne...that was a bit of written beauty...thank you...z likes sarah palin...lord only knows why...
I have told you since day one, Sarah Palin is helping to move everyone to the right.
If Obama is so smart, how come he won’t release any of his academic transcripts? Maybe that’s what Colin Powell sees in Obama, another affirmative action success story.
This is unfortunately, the new American dream the sell outs have purchased for us in blood and fiat. Don't expect it to get much better, it took many years to put us here, and if they ever seriously want to get out of it, it will take more years than I will live. Keep raising S.S., and continue destroying pensions, markets, and 401k's, and we will see historic levels of poverty and exploitation of those in their senior years brought to us live by our two fair haired parties.
“I have told you since day one, Sarah Palin is helping to move everyone to the right.”
Sarah and the rest of the mongrels do not even know where the real right is.
Now they offer up a new Pledge for America, I remember the old Contract with America;
“Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act "with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.
On the first day of the 104th Congress, the new Republican majority will immediately pass the following major reforms, aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the American people in their government:
FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.
Thereafter, within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote and each to be immediately available this day for public inspection and scrutiny.
1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.
2. THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT: An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in- sentencing, "good faith" exclusionary rule exemptions, effective death penalty provisions, and cuts in social spending from this summer's "crime" bill to fund prison construction and additional law enforcement to keep people secure in their neighborhoods and kids safe in their schools.
3. THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare, cut spending for welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.
4. THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT: Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, strengthening rights of parents in their children's education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of families in American society.
5. THE AMERICAN DREAM RESTORATION ACT: A S500 per child tax credit, begin repeal of the marriage tax penalty, and creation of American Dream Savings Accounts to provide middle class tax relief.
6. THE NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT: No U.S. troops under U.N. command and restoration of the essential parts of our national security funding to strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility around the world.
7. THE SENIOR CITIZENS FAIRNESS ACT: Raise the Social Security earnings limit which currently forces seniors out of the work force, repeal the 1993 tax hikes on Social Security benefits and provide tax incentives for private long-term care insurance to let Older Americans keep more of what they have earned over the years.
8. THE JOB CREATION AND WAGE ENHANCEMENT ACT: Small business incentives, capital gains cut and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages
9. THE COMMON SENSE LEGAL REFORM ACT: "Loser pays" laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages and reform of product liability laws to stem the endless tide of litigation
10. THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators
Further, we will instruct the House Budget Committee to report to the floor and we will work to enact additional budget savings, beyond the budget cuts specifically included in the legislation described above, to ensure that the Federal budget deficit will be less than it would have been without the enactment of these bills.
Respecting the judgment of our fellow citizens as we seek their mandate for reform, we hereby pledge our names to this Contract with America. “
http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html
This one did not work out well for America, corruption, scandal, outsourcing, off shoring, incentives for business to leave America, Saipan labor camps blessed with made in USA labels, lobbying excess (right Jack), etc.. I am sure this Pledge will work out to the highest bidders advantage as well.
People must ask themselves, “how did we get to where we are now”, after the promise of a wonderfully written document as viewed above. A very simple mathematical formula, T = P + R + C , and the help of the saints listed below to augment the formula, and the intentional failure to honor the Contract, allowed the rollover of Congress to Democratic control where yet again the same processes of corruption play out as the new pigs suckle at the trough.
Cunningham CA, R, bribery
Delay TX, R, influence peddling
Doolittle CA, R, influence peddling
Harman CA, D, leaking classified info.
Foley FL, R, sexual misconduct
Harris FL, R, influence peddling
Hastert IL, R, Foley fallout
Jefferson LA, D, bribery
Kelly NY, R, Foley fallout
Kolbe AZ, R, sexual misconduct
Lewis CA, R, influence peddling
Mollohan, WVA, D, influence peddling
Ney OH, R, bribery
Renzi AZ, R, influence peddling
Reynolds NY, R, Foley fallout
Sherwood PA, R, sexual misconduct
Shimkus IL, R, Foley fallout
Weldon PA, R, influence peddling
And now the ping pong ball prepares to cross the table again, and as in the past, once the feeding begins, the Pledge will be quickly forgot about.
And the old ways of whoring themselves out will be rapidly remembered…
http://tapsearch.com/globalization/id4.html
It will not work out for him.
they were going to get rid of the useless education dep't...in fact they promised to get rid of a few of them..never happened...though remember clinton was blocking them at the time...but yes you are right...they were corrupt as those before them...
http://dailybail.com/home/sarah-palin-is-a-national-embarrassment-and-a-bailout-social.html
and this...
The Poetry Of Sarah Palin's Tweets As Interpreted By William Shatner »
http://dailybail.com/home/the-poetry-of-sarah-palins-tweets-as-interpreted-by-william.html
http://dailybail.com/home/meet-young-sarah-palin-sports-reporter-1988-video.html
She is actually decent at sportscasting...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck
He is actually decent at redistributing wealth and bashing the Constitution...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ZXtg-SnzE
But both sides were working together proudly on NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, Most favored Nation, FTAA, etc., with token hold outs on each side, that is the point, they are not as opposed to one another as they try to get us to believe. Gee, I wonder where the jobs went?
Growth will not occur without Joe sixpack spending, and Joe can't spend when his job was proudly sold to non U.S. tax paying foreigners by those excepting gratuities from those foreign and domestic exploiters of our people.
Oh what a tangled web we weave...
The formula works well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7htiGbkUbmc
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plain vanilla 10x leverage...as yves smith said, it wasn't the sub-prime securities that blew up the world...it was the layers and layers of derivatives bets based on these securities that blew everything up...10, 20 30 TIMES the nominal amount of actual sub-prime securities...and guess what...nothing changed...derivatives can still blow up the world...
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/transcript1.html
Congress missed the third set of policy errors, to accept contributions to deregulate, therefore accepting that man is inherently good and will self regulate to the benefit of all, while we continue to repeat cycles.
They overlooked the regulatory issues as well under the section financial crises.
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/7962.pdf
Two themes stand out repeatedly, fiscal policy and lack of oil independence. Both of these are addressable, but always ignored, or we do a weak reform and then the lobbyists immediately start pumping the campaign purses to weaken or eliminate the reform.
You will love the policy response section while thinking about our current maelstrom, which to me is only an extension of our last recession separated by a jobless recovery combined with a manipulated artificially pumped up market "rally" that obviously could not, and did not sustain itself.
The economy can't thrive if Joe sixpack can't buy...