Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Newt Gingrich, also "All-American Muslims"

Newt on the poverty solution (i.e. fixing lazy black people):
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/newt-gingrich-s-poverty-code

Newt's tax plan: Bush on steroids (zero cap. gains that helps the rich, but deficit will probably balloon)
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/13/143656946/analysis-gingrichs-tax-plan-would-benefit-the-rich

Newt's career highlights (Main St. GOP likes him because he is boldly attacking Obama, but no conservatives in DC are celebrating as they remember his shaky record as Speaker)
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/08/143281791/gingrichs-path-from-flameout-to-d-c-entrepreneur

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Also from tonight's Daily Show, you can't make this stuff up. A douchebag Florida conservative group is protesting the "All-American Muslims" show on TLC (a reality TV show following "regular US Muslims" in Michigan). The FL group is basically offended that the show is not portraying the radical fringe of Islam, and showing Muslims acting too normally. This conflicts with the "belief structure" that they hold about Muslims, so they don't like it. They want to hate and fear ALL Muslims, but it's harder to do that when you see them going to work just like us, loving their families just as we do, and doing all the other American things. This was probably one of the show producer's goals, but I guess some Americans prefer to cling to their black-white, good-evil stereotypes rather than consider another viewpoint supported by evidence. It's not like the show is claiming that all Muslims are normal and peaceful (though clearly many of them are), but the protesters probably feel that the show is just propaganda to get us to lower our guard on the "sharia threat." Yes, that treacherous TLC is clearly bent on America's destruction. You can FFWD to 1:30 on the video to skip past some fluff. 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/kabulvision

Maybe we can dismiss these protests as just ignorant xenophobia, but apparently corporate advertisers are acting on the complaints. For example, Lowes decided to pull its ads from the show (they claim they don't want to be associated with a "lightning rod" program). So they are OK to advertise during Jersey Shore and other crap, but a show with real Muslims acting too normally - that's a no-no. Just shameful.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/11/showbiz/all-american-muslim-lowes/index.html

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Congess' outrageous insider trading

Corporate executives, members of the executive branch and all federal judges are subject to strict conflict of interest rules. But not the people who write the laws.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information
http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/07/news/congress_insider_trading/index.htm?section=money_topstories

"60 Minutes" had a recent report exposing the egregious insider trading conducted by members of Congress that is technically not illegal for them, but would put normal people in the slammer. Sensing that the gig is up and anticipating public outcry, the Senate is now resuscitating 2004's STOCK Act: a failed bill to explicitly ban insider trading by Congress, and require more frequent public disclosure of lawmakers' trading activities. In order to look ethical leading up to an election year, the bill has currently attracted 171 co-signers (possibly a record), whereas it couldn't get an ounce of support during its original drafting. Some critics say that the bill is unnecessary because regular trading laws already apply to Congress, and they are not "insider" employees of the companies whose securities they trade. But of course neither was Martha Stewart.

As an example, take September 2008. Lehman was about to go under, and the whole system was on the edge. Paulson and Bernanke called a select group of lawmakers for ultra-secret meetings to break the bad news and plan responses. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but one of the attendees, the ranking GOP on the House Fin. Svcs. Cmte., AL's Spencer Bachus, suddenly bought a massive amount of options that would pay out if the market tanked. Bachus was one of our elected officials who was supposed to avert the crisis, yet he had a clear financial incentive to let the market plummet. WTF?

Maybe another coincidence, but current House Speaker Boehner was trading in health insurance stocks during the health reform debate. Shortly before Washington decided to kill the public option proposal, Boehner bought shares of private insurance companies when everyone else was bearish on them. And of course with the news of the public option's demise, insurer's stock prices rose and he made money.

We already know that most legislators leave DC much richer than when they arrived (and it's not because of their generous salaries). They make decisions with millions or billions at stake, so of course private interests attempt to sway their opinions with bribes. It's not as bad as Nigeria or Iraq, but it happens here plenty. On top of that they need to play the markets too? Aren't they too busy running the country and serving their constituents to trade on the side? Most of us don't even have 5 min a day to watch the tickers, but trading is much easier when you are way ahead of the information curve. It's ridiculous, they are beyond shame.

Take this other example involving IPOs:

If you were a senator... and I gave you $10,000 cash, one or both of us is probably gonna go to jail. But if I'm a corporate executive and you're a senator, and I give you IPO shares in stock and over the course of one day that stock nets you $100,000, that's completely legal.

Look at Pelosi's reaction to questions about her profiting from the 2008 Visa IPO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0LMAP0L5G4

She claims to fight the big banks and help ordinary Americans, yet she accepted shares in Visa while helping to kill CC reform legislation back then that could have saved Americans billions during this horrible recession. The specific reform was eventually signed into law in 2010, but banks got 2 precious years to restructure their revenue models in anticipation of this change. So clearly it's not just a GOP problem.

I would go further than the STOCK Act: Congressmen can't trade in any equity, real estate, or international securities while in office, AND one year thereafter. Maybe bar their immediate families too. They get the pension anyway, why the need for more cap. gains? They can park their money in a 1% CD or money market account like the rest of us saps. They are public servants after all, and servants sacrifice, they don't get rich. How bad would it look if a US soldier in Iraq was in charge of protecting a BP facility, but one night insurgents blow it up? Then later his superiors find out that he was shorting BP stock a week before the incident. As far as I know, FDA employees aren't allowed to trade in stocks of the companies they're auditing, and I think employees at the Fed and Treasury have to sell all their financial stock before taking the job too. It's common sense, so why is Congress somehow exempt? Are they saints? I would also copy China and EXECUTE public officials convicted of corruption, fraud, etc. I'm against capital punishment except for this. I know China's policy hasn't fully stopped the problem, but at least it sends a message that people can't just profit with impunity and make a mockery of the law/public office. But this is America, the country that pardoned Tricky Dick. So tired of this crap.  

From "60 Minutes":
But what baffles Baird even more is that the situation has gotten worse. In the past few years a whole new totally unregulated, $100 million dollar industry has grown up in Washington called political intelligence. It employs former congressmen and former staffers to scour the halls of the Capitol gathering valuable non-public information then selling it to hedge funds and traders on Wall Street who can trade on it.

Baird says its taken what would be a criminal enterprise anyplace else in the country and turned it into a profitable business model.
Baird: The town is all about people saying-- what do you know that I don't know. This is the currency of Washington, D.C. And it's that kind of informational currency that translates into real currency. Maybe it's over drinks maybe somebody picks up a phone. And says you know just to let you know it's in the bill. Trades happen. Can't trace 'em. If you can trace 'em, it's not illegal. It's a pretty great system. You feel like an idiot to not take advantage of it.