Author: Matthew G. Saroff

It’s a Small World, But I am Not Painting it

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Martin Eisenstadt discovered some interesting facts about “Joe the Plumber”. aka Joe Wurzelbacher.

It turns out that he’s related to Robert Wurzelbacher….

…wait for it….

Who was a senior vice president of American Continental Corporation

…wait for it….

Which was the parent company of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan.

…wait for it….

And he pled guilty to three federal fraud counts in response to the failure of that institution.

…wait for it….

Also it turns out that he was the son in law of

…wait for it….

Charles Keating!

Someone on the McCain campaign staff is reading this somewhere, and invoking Bender when he shouts, “We’re boned!

Not Enough Money in the World

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It’s a scary phrase, but when credit default swaps have a nominal value in excess of the GDP of the world, it’s true in a sense. The level of fraud, waste, and abuse is at a level that exceeds all the money in the world.

Scare quote courtesy of Chris Floyd:

Try to imagine that: a $55 trillion market now at risk of complete destruction. Even the derivative debt owed by individual institutions stands at nation-wrecking levels. For example, a single bank in Britain, Barclays again, holds more than $2.4 trillion in credit default swaps, the tradable “insurance” mechanism against securities default. This is more than the entire GDP of Great Britain. If all this paper goes bad, there are not enough assets in the entire country to pay it off. And that’s just one bank, in one country.

Well, isn’t that special.

SEC Failed to Monitor Bear Stearns Well Before Collapse

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The SEC prematurely folded an investigation of Bear Stearns involvement in collateralized debt obligations:

In the report, obtained by CNBC, SEC Inspector General David Kotz says the agency inexplicably dropped the case in 2007, even after Bear Stearns had offered to pay a monetary settlement.

The report says the director of the SEC’s Miami office, David Nelson, had an “ongoing personal relationship” with the Bear Stearns attorney in the case. In dropping the case, Nelson allegedly told his friend, “Christmas is coming early this year,” adding Bear Stearns “can keep their money.”

More importantly, the SEC’s Inspector General notes that this investigation would likely have uncovered the problems that led to the demise of the investment bank.

Zimbabwe Deal Collapses

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Basically, because Thabo Mbeki wanted a deal to secure his legacy, he forced the MDC to sign a deal that wasn’t fleshed out, so now Mugabe has unilaterally appointed his minions to head the military, police, and state media ministries.

This means that the ZANU-PF would retain control of the country, and their thuggish “war veterans” would continue to operate with impugnity.

Representatives of the MDC have stated the obvious, that they should have waited until the details on power sharing were hammered out. Of particular interest is the quotes that point the finger for this failure squarely at Mbeki:

Various media reports quote informed sources as saying: “Tsvangirai made it clear that he did not trust Mugabe and insisted that the key issue of the allocation of ministries should be put into black and white first and vowed he would not sign the deal if this condition was not met,” said a source who negotiated for Tsvangirai’s party. “Mugabe had promised that all the parties would have a key ministry and even suggested that he would retain Defence and Agriculture, while Tsvangirai would be allocated Home Affairs and Information. Mutambara was supposed to get Justice and Youth.”

But the sources said Mbeki lambasted Tsvangirai, after Mugabe had declared his commitment to making the deal a success. “Mbeki told him, ‘Heads of states are already here for the signing of this deal and you say you cannot sign’ – and Tsvangirai had no option,” said the source. Mbeki had held private talks with Tsvangirai the previous Tuesday as the power-sharing deal remained deadlocked.

It is now blindingly clear that Mbeki is, as I have repeatedly said, is the problem, not the solution.

Not surprisingly, Tsvangirai has threatened to withdraw from the power sharing deal as a result.

In an attempt to put out this fire by adding gasoline, Mbeki is headed back for more negotiations.

The right move would be to replace Mbeki with someone who isn’t in Mugabe’s pocket.

As a result we are seeing another refugee flood into South Africa, and threats of of new sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Mugabe’s thugs are returning to form, with riot police beating protesters.

It appears that the main driver of this is the fears of Mugabe’s generals that they would be subject to criminal prosecution if the opposition takes any control of the state security apparatus.

Bush Goes to Jail

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Or more accurately, he would in any system that has the real possibility for justice and honesty, so notes Dan Froomkin, who makes the point that it is now clear that Bush specifically authorized torture in a memo to the CIA.

Here is hoping that Obama goes after Bush and his Evil Minions ™, because healing by allowing the evil to skate, as was done by Gerald Ford with Richard Nixon, only encourages further evil.

Economics Update

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Well, I just overheard on the radio that the Baltic Dry Index, a measure of the cost of shipping, just fell to a more than 5 year low.

Ships are sitting idle as manufacturers try to reduce inventory.

We are also seeing this at the other end of the manufacturer to market equation, with retail sales falling 1.2% in September…And remember, this was before Lehman imploded.

The Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, a report of the state of the economy, is pointing down too, as is the New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey.

In energy, crude oil ended at less than $75/bbl today…..One note, when I predicted some time back that we would never see the south side of $100/bbl, I was wrong.

Interestingly enough we are also seeing reports that Paulson can give money to banks, but he can’t make them lend it out, which would seem to imply that we need someone more interventionist at the helm.

Canada: More Harper

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Cons.
Lib.
B.Q.
N.D.P.
Other
Total
Leading:
144
75
49
38
2
308
Popular vote (%):
37.4
27.3
9.3
18.2
7.8
100

My condolences to the people of Canada. Even though it is a minority government, I can’t see a coalition government going the other way, when one party captures 143 of the 155 votes needed for a majority.

It doesn’t help that the Libs and the BQ really don’t like each other.

So you will see 4 more years of Western Petro-Neanderthal policies….Hope that he does not completely destroy the NHS.

The meltdown did prevent an absolute majority though, and should make it more difficult for his party to destroy government health care in Canada.

Overheard on Stellar Parthenon

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I should note that the private BBS, Stellarparthenon.org, frequently supplies me with ideas, or at least a direction in the generally civil and well informed discussions there.*

It turns out that even the musings on conspiracy theories tend to be pretty literate and well reasoned.

Case in point, SP member “Pickapeppa” made the following observation:

So just for the sake of discussion, let’s say Bush does intend to declare martial law and become it’s first dictator.

What do you think would be the first thing he’d want control over besides the military (which he already has).

Perhaps the banks?

Well, I’m sleeping like a baby tonight.

*The “closed” bit is why there are, “generally civil and well informed discussions” there.