VACATION FROM THE INTERNET IS OVER
Back to work. Hope everyone is still around and well prepared for an IRS audit, or a secret Eric Holder privacy incursion. Might as well get started with the good news. The FT writes tonight that Larry Summers is the favorite to replace Bernanke and inherit the Fed's $4 trillion balance sheet.
HOLDER PASSES THE BUCK
Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before Congress earlier today.
NOT ON OUR WATCH
Alberto Gonzales: Bush Administration Refused to Pursue Media in Leak Probes
TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Star Trek video produced by the IRS for a 2010 training and leadership conference.
More inside.
MODERN EDUCATION EXPOSED
Youtube viral video with more than 1.2 million views in just the last 6 days. Jeff Bliss gives an unforgettable lesson to his teacher at Duncanville High School in Texas.
BitCoin Panic: Department of Homeland Security Shuts Down Payments System
The Department of Homeland Security has shut down Dwolla, a mobile payment service used to withdraw and deposit money into Mt. Gox, the Bitcoin trading platform.
TAXPAYER PROFIT
Bloomberg Interviews Fannie Mae CEO Tim Mayopoulos
Timothy J. Mayopoulos, CEO of Fannie Mae, talks about the company's turnaround and outlook, the likelihood U.S. taxpayers may profit from their bailout of Fannie and the need for clarity from Congress about the future of the housing finance.
"There is a risk that policy makers will look at our profitability and conclude that they don't need to take action to reform the housing finance system. That would be a mistake."
IRS AND AP SCANDALS
OBAMA TREK: INTO DARKNESS
The IRS shifts the burden of proof from the tinfoil behatted to the government.
WITHOUT CONSENT
The Other Thing JPMorgan Was Doing in Its London Office
Gambling on high-risk synthetic credit derivatives is not the only area of interest at JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) – the division that has thus far admitted to losing $6.2 billion in the London Whale debacle. According to Exhibit 81 released by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Ina Drew, the head of the CIO, was also overseeing the investment of funds in the firm’s Bank Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) and Corporate Owned Life Insurance (COLI) plans – a scheme enshrined by the U.S. Congress in 2006 that allows too-big-to-fail banks as well as many other corporations to reap huge tax benefits by taking out life insurance policies on workers – even low wage workers – and naming the corporation the beneficiary of the death benefit.
Most Americans are unaware that for at least 25 years big business and banks have been secretly taking out millions of life insurance policies on their workers and naming the corporation the beneficiary of the death benefit without the knowledge of the employee. The individual policies are frequently in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes millions. To keep track of employees who have left the company, deaths are routinely tracked through the Social Security Administration. The policies became known as “dead peasant” or “janitor” policies because corporations took out life insurance on millions of low-wage workers, including janitors, without their knowledge or consent.
WHO'S OVERSEEING JAMIE DIMON?
JPMORGAN IS THE WORST OFFENDER
Start watching at 45 seconds. Josh Rosner this morning with Tom Keene discussing Jamie Dimon's future, and violations at JPMorgan compared to other banks.
JPM is the worst of all its peers in regulatory matters.
HOLY SHITE FLASHBACK
Just found this clip. Obama jokes about the IRS auditing the President and Board of Regents of Arizona State University while delivering the commencement address at ASU in 2009. If you remember, the background to this story was that ASU chose not to award an honorary degree to Obama because he hadn't achieved a complete "body of work" in his life.
May 28, 2013 at 2:50 AM
