Peter Schiff Formally Announces His Candidacy For The U. S. Senate

And this just in from the wire services (tip to Allison D.):

Senator Chris Dodd is still a malignant piece of banking roadkill who inherited his Senate seat through political nepotism (daddy).  And CEO of WWE , Linda McMahon is but an unfortunate distraction for Schiff on his way to Washington, where he is expected to bust heads on the regular.  A few deft piledrivers from Schiff, and McMahon will be down for the count.

Make sure to visit Schiff For Senate and show your support.

A photo of Dodd, Cox, B-52, and the Hammer.  Yes, you might have seen it previously, but laughter is good for the soul.

Comments

[DailyBail]

Peter Schiff: Of Course We're not Going To Payback The Chinese

http://dailybail.com/home/peter-schiff-of-course-were-not-going-to-pay-back-the-chines.html

[DailyBail]

Futuristic electric car from Renault...picture is bizarre...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aMEAfMZq0jJc

[DailyBail]

The device was originally made to be used for war, and it emits high-pitched sounds as a form of crowd control.

On Monday, members of the American Civil Liberties Union spoke with 10News, and they expressed outrage that local law enforcement had the device and that they had brought it to recent town hall meetings in case things got out of hand.

http://www.10news.com/news/20931535/detail.html

[DailyBail]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Facing criticism for her handling of federal stimulus money, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she would not start any new border construction projects while the department reviewed how projects were selected.

Napolitano has faced questions since The Associated Press reported last month that Homeland Security officials did not follow their internal priority lists when choosing which border checkpoints would get money for renovations. Under a process that is secretive and susceptible to political influence, officials planned to spend millions at tiny checkpoints, passing over busier, higher-priority projects.

The criticism peaked Wednesday when a senior Senate Democrat, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, said that, despite Napolitano's assurances, he felt Homeland Security was treating the economic stimulus plan like a "bottomless pit" of taxpayer money. It was unusually pointed criticism from a member of the president's own party about how the administration is handling economic recovery spending.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090916/D9AOM5V80.html

[DailyBail]

WASHINGTON — The Interior Department announced on Wednesday that it was ending an oil and gas royalty program that ignited a scandal last year when it was disclosed that federal employees had engaged in corruption, drug use and sexual misconduct with oil industry officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/business/energy-environment/17royalty.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[DailyBail]

Congressional testimony of FBI Chief Mueller

http://www.senate.gov/fplayers/CommPlayer/commFlashPlayer.cfm?fn=judiciary091609&st=xxx

http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress09/mueller091609.htm

[DailyBail]

The Lehman Anniversary

Nouriel Roubini

What's different? What's still the same?

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/16/lehman-brothers-anniversary-derivatives-counterparties-opinions-columnists-nouriel-roubini.html

[DailyBail]

GE’s Fraud Case Could Use the Judge Gone Wild: Jonathan Weil

Another great piece from Weil:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aqVE_JsRxvQ0

[DailyBail]

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. automaker run by Fiat SpA, said nationwide industry sales are off 19 percent so far this month after a government purchase- incentive program ended.

“We are going to see harsh reality in September,” Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive officer of Fiat and Chrysler, said at the Frankfurt Motor Show. He described the U.S. industry results as a “disaster.” Fritz Henderson, CEO of General Motors Co., said the market is “very weak” this month.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aCIadllzd_Zc

[DailyBail]

Barclays accused of trickery in $12.3bn toxic asset sale

Barclays has been accused of "banking by sleight of hand" after creating a new company to take over its most toxic assets and ringfence future losses.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6199483/Barclays-accused-of-trickery-in-12.3bn-toxic-asset-sale.html

Make sure to read this one...

[allie]

"Barclays accused of trickery in $12.3bn toxic asset sale"

The story sounds like the Enron deal with the Jedi and Chewco SPEs

[Assassin]

I am glad to see Schiff in the race, and am impressed with how far ahead he was of this crisis. Also, he's accurately diagnosed a debt problem, and a reliance on borrowing+consumption versus production, that many Americans are still in denial about. So I will be donating at least some money to his campaign.

However, I'm no laizze faire type, and like efforts to crack down on the banks' egregious practices. So somebody sway me away from also donating to Dodd. I first donated to his Presidential campaign in 2007, after he took a stand on some Constitutional issue (I think it was warrantless wiretapping). And he's done or is pursuing two things I like:

- Introducing the CARD Act in the Senate, albeit with Carolyn Maloney in the House being the initiator of an equivalent bill months earlier. This prevents some of the nastier practices of credit card companies, like retroactively jacking up the rate on money already lent. I was glad to see this signed into law.
- He's now working on requiring banks to give customers an option as to whether they want to enroll in that overdraft nonsense. Remember when if you tried to charge/debit/ATM too much, you'd just get a simple "Insufficient funds" message? And it probably cost the bank all of what, $0.004, to send that message? I'll be glad to see those days return. Pass along the $0.004 cost to the consumer if it's so burdensome; I'm sure they won't mind.

And please spare me "personal responsibility" lectures, as I pay my CC off every month, and I've only had one overdraft fee. These practices are sleazy, and if supporting dreaded government intervention against them makes me a "statist" who will kill you and enslave your children, then so be it.

It seems the worst count against Dodd is the $2700 mortgage discount via Countrywide he supposedly had prior knowledge about. Now honestly, I'm skeptical of this, as I'm not sure why somebody who made $160,000/year would risk anything over a trifling $2700. But that doesn't necessarily disprove the allegation, though I haven't seen it proven either.

Is there anything else that should dissuade me? It may seem odd to ask this question out of the blue, but I see a lot of Dodd hatred on the blogs, and would like to see a coherent argument backing it. I like both Dodd and Schiff; such a thing is possible.

Heck, I also like Linda McMahon. I remember hearing on Mad Money that as CEO of WWE, she decided to have the company raise its dividend for all shareholders -- *except* insiders such as the McMahon family. That was definitely classy. You don't hear about many companies doing things like that.

So I might be making *3* donations to candidates who aren't even in my state. LOL.

[Assassin]

Typo fix: Laissez faire. I knew I was spelling that wrong when first posting, but couldn't conjure up the right letters.

[James H]

Assassin, even forgetting the "Dodd amendment" to the "stimulus" bill (is he stupid or corrupt?), the CC regs will get passed (or won't get passed) regardless of what Dodd does. And maybe laissez faire isn't the right way of looking at CC extortion and fraud, but wouldn't it be worth 10,000 good CC regs to have Schiff in the senate exposing the economic illiteracy of the ruling class on a daily basis? The campaign itself would be worth it, just for giving Schiff's message broader exposure. Personally, I think Dodd just doesn't know what he's doing half the time (the other half he's probably thinking about campaign contributions). But Schiff's your man. He's fearless and incorruptible because he doesn't want a career in politics. He can afford to be outrageous (i.e. tell the truth). Just having Schiff in there to stand up against any future bailouts (they're coming) would be worth it.

BTW, some of us (not all) have expressed some support for laws against the sleaziest credit card practices (like jacking up rates on existing balances to 30% while your company is receiving TARP and Fed funds at 0.5% or whatever).

[DailyBail]

I'm with James here...I interpret Dodd's recent legislative effort as pandering to an electorate that no longer trusts him...

I agree with his new proposals but I can't support the guy...wasn't he heavily involved in the repeal of Glass-Steagal?

I have no familiarity with Linda McMahon so I can't comment...

Schiff brings more credibility than any other candidate...

[DailyBail]

@Allie

Yes, Barclay's move smells of Enron or Citi...take your pick...i'm sure you are aware that Citi has over $1 trillion sitting off-balance sheet...

Will be interesting to see if the new rule actually takes effect that will require bringing these assets back onto the sheet...the cynic in me says it gets postponed again...