And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.
I would assume that these banks of Florida are all affiliated, but it’s still another 4 a 5 bank week.
(Sun West came in late, so I have updated)
So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):
Australia is suing Japan in the International Court of Justice over their whaling:
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia said Friday it will challenge Japan’s whale hunting in the Antarctic at the International Court of Justice, a major legal escalation in its campaign to ban the practice despite Tokyo’s insistence on the right to so-called scientific whaling.
My guess is that they will argue that Japan’s “research” is a fig leaf for a commercial activity.
The Australians are right, of course.
The White House has come out against letting auto dealers cheat their customers.
To quote the first few ‘graphs of the official statement:
Later this afternoon, the Senate will vote on a motion to instruct conferees on the Brownback Amendment. That basically means members of the Senate will cast a nonbinding vote on whether or not they think the House and Senate conferees should consider carving out a loophole for auto dealers that make auto loans from the financial reform bill.
The President has been clear on this issue, repeatedly urging members of the Senate to fight efforts of the special interests and their lobbyists to weaken consumer protections. The fact is, auto dealer-lending is an $850 billion industry, which is larger than the entire credit card industry and they make nearly 80 percent of the automobile loans in our country.
Is there any question that these lenders should be subject to the same standards as any local or community bank that provides loans?
This is the right thing to do.
The General Medical Council, the physicians’ regulatory body in the UK, has revoked the medical licens(c)e of Andrew Wakefield and his colleague John Walker-Smith, though the 3rd participant in the study, was exhonerated when it was determined that he stopped doing tests when he determined that they were unethical.
The first two “doctors” subjected children to excruciating tests like lumbar puncture without any review from ethics committees,
For a devastating cartoon version of the facts, which details how Wakefield did this because he was bought and paid for, see here.
Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that he will get what he really deserves, which is a very long time in gaol.
In an earlier post, regarding an article where a quote:
“Don’t be silly,” McLaughlin responds. “No one’s backed away from anything. . . . Isn’t . . . the author of the article, an anti [net neutrality] zealot?”
I put 2 and 2 together, and got 5. I said that it was clearly CNET reporter Declan McCullagh.
Well, it was not Mr. McCullagh.
It was someone else, and here is (my best guess) his article.
It sounded as if was something that came from Mr. McCullagh, who is a somewhat-saner-than-Rand-Paul libertarian, but I was wrong.
I had an exchange with the author, Roger Parloff, who told me who the author was, and that he felt that naming the author would require space for a response, which would have crowded out other information in an article with a limited length.
Perhaps the solution here is for online articles from dead tree publications, Fortune Magazine in this case, would be better served by providing links under such circumstances.
It’s bloggy, but I’ve always been a fan of hyperlinks, or their old school predecessor, the footnote.
In any case, I was wrong, and I apologize to my reader(s) and Mr. McCullagh.
The headline is actually rather more interesting than the story.
You see, like most states, Nevada bans electioneering within a certain distance, 100 feet in this case.
This applies to things like campaign T-shirts, buttons, etc.
Well, because of Republican front runner Sue Lowden’s statements about bartering chickens for medical services, state elections officials have banned chicken costumes and chicken memorabilia from the “no electioneering” zone:
Nevada banned people wearing chicken costumes from polling places around the state on Friday.
The state election commission does not want the costumes or other poultry-related memorabilia to prevent mocking of Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden, who wants to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D).
I approve of their decision. The presence of chicken related items is electioneering in this context, so their decision is correct in both the strict legal sense, and in the more general context.
Still, it’s a weird hed, ain’t it?
And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.
So it appears that the rapid pace of closures may be moderating somewhat.
And here are the credit union closings:
Note that this credit union has nothing to do with Nuns, it was served members of the Convent Avenue Baptist Church.
It’s a tiny institution, with fewer than 300 members.
So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):
In an otherwise ordinary article about how former Googlers in the Obama White House continue to talk with current Googlers, we have the following exchange:
In January, for instance, Google’s vice president and “chief Internet evangelist” Vint Cerf anxiously wrote to McLaughlin about the worsening chances for net neutrality — the notion that Internet Service Providers should be barred from favoring their own content or from offering “fast-lane” services to premium-paying customers. “Has there been so much flack from the Hill that you guys feel a need to back away” from a commitment?, asked Cerf, attaching a CNET article by a well-credentialed business consultant who was advancing that thesis.
“Don’t be silly,” McLaughlin responds. “No one’s backed away from anything. . . . Isn’t . . . the author of the article, an anti [net neutrality] zealot?”
“Yes, he is,” Cerf wrote. “Just wanted to confirm he’s full of biased baloney.”
“Absolutely,” McLaughlin replied.
If you go through the article, you will never see that name of the journalist in question, Declan McCullagh, who was best described as a “Draw by crayon libertarian,” by the inestimable Andrew Orlowski of The Register.
I deduce it from the Clues, “CNET,” “anti [net neutrality] zealot,” and “Biased Baloney,” if you are familiar with McCullagh’s oeuvre.
What is almost certain is that if the principals in this story were talking about a statement by a lawyer given to over-the-top statements, (Geoff Feiger, for example) you would have seen the name in the story.
It’s not in this story, because it is seen as inappropriate for a journalist to call out another journalist by name, even in the context of a quote someone else.
This attitude is corrosive to journalism.
The Senate passes the Financial Reform Bill.
The banks must be relieved. If the bill had been delayed any further, it would have gotten tougher.
It was a Pizarro world bill in a good way.
Unfortunately, I don’t see it getting any tougher in conference.
Cantwell of Washington and Feingold of Wisconsin continued to vote against cloture, but Republicans Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and as well as Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who voted against cloture yesterday, voted for cloture, and with Harry Reid switching his vote, it means that the debate has been ended on the bill, and it can proceed to a vote.
It’s better than the status quo, but still crappy, which is what Barack Obama would call “post partisan,” I guess.
The vote was 57-42 against cloture, with Democrats Maria Cantwell of Washington and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin voting against cloture,* and Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, voted for cloture, with Specter not yet back in the Senate.
Cantwell and Feingold are right here: They have been refused a vote on a number of important amendments and other issues, most notably:
It’s nice that some progressives have shown that they are willing to show teeth.
With Republicans coming to realize just how loathed Wall Street is, and realizing that Blanche Lincoln’s reelection driven decision to get rough on the banks has triggered a dynamic which makes the bill more extreme as time goes on, as opposed to the usual process of bills getting emasculated in the Senate.
Every day that goes by, it gets for any Republican and corporatist Democrat who is standing for reelection this year finds it harder and harder do do Wall Street’s bidding.
I think that after a few more days of delay, they’ll end up finding a way to break up the big banks.
*Harry Reid voted against cloture too, but that is so he can offer a motion to reconsider, allowing for revote.
EU finance ministers have decided to require greater transparency and regulations of hedge funds, despite (also here):
EU finance ministers have agreed a common position on draft EU legislation on managers of hedge funds and other alternative investment firms, opening the door for negotiations with the European Parliament, the co-legislator.
The agreement on Tuesday (18 May) comes despite UK concerns that the Europe-wide law could negatively impact the British economy, with 80 percent of hedge funds currently located in London.
I would note that one of the myths here is that hedge funds and other highly speculative activities benefit the economy as a whole.
They don’t. They suck productive intellect and capital into purely speculative activities, and this makes everyone but the hedgies and bankers poorer.
The US has been fighting this tooth and nail, and claiming that this is protectionism in violation of WTO rules, but I agree with Yves at naked capitalism on what this is really about: “
Yves again. Did you catch that? Look at what the Europeans want: to regulate hedge and PE funds, as in prevent them from engaging in behavior proven to be dangerous (abuse leverage) and give investors more disclosure, and restrict firms that refuse to agree to play by those rules. That is hardly a radical agenda, yet Treasury Department is working in lockstep with the industry to defend its ability to operate with minimal constraints. And note that no one is mounting an argument that these businesses are socially productive and hurting them will hurt the economy because no such argument can be made credibly. Instead, an effort to impose “prudent regulation” is begin branded as “discrimination.” The problem is no one outside the industry will buy the argument. And Team Obama’s zealous defense of these firms again reveals how, despite its efforts to present a populist, pro-reform image, that it will never cross its best friends, the big financiers, in a serious way.
With members of Congress realizing that the political backlash from being easy on the banks completely overwhelming any amount of campaign donations that the finance industry can generate, which is why the Senate finance reform bill is getting better, it’s time for Barack and His Evil Minions™ to realize that their political future is connected to taking down the banks.
Notwithstanding Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner’s whoring for the big banks support of so-called naked Credit Default Swaps, Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority has banned the sale of these insurance like instruments to people who do not have an interest in the continued existence of the insured property, as well as banning naked short sales of stocks, where you sell stocks that you have not borrowed:
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority has on Tuesday temporarily banned naked short sales of debt securities issued by eurozone countries for trading on domestic stock exchanges in the regulated market. It has also temporarily banned so-called credit default swaps (CDS) where the reference bond and liability are from a eurozone country, and which does not serve to hedge against default risk (naked CDS).
In addition, BaFin has banned naked short sales in the following financial sector companies:
AAREAL BANK AG
ALLIANZ SE
COMMERZBANK AG
DEUTSCHE BANK AG
DEUTSCHE BÖRSE AG
DEUTSCHE POSTBANK AG
GENERALI Deutschland HOLDING AG
HANNOVER RÜCKVERSICHERUNG AG
MLP AG
MÜNCHENER RÜCKVERSICHERUNGS-GESELLSCHAFT AG
These bans apply from 19 May 2010, 00:00, until 31 March 2011, 24:00, and will be reviewed.BaFin justifies these steps given extraordinary volatility in debt securities issued by eurozone countries. Furthermore, credit default swaps on the credit default risk of several countries in the eurozone has increased significantly. Against this background, massive short sales of the affected debt securities and the conclusion of naked credit default risk on eurozone countries had led to excessive price shifts, which could have led to significant disadvantages for financial markets and have threatened the stability of the entire financial system.
Faced with these circumstances, BaFin has also banned naked short sales within the selected financial institutions.
It’s a start, and I think that both the naked short and the naked CDS may very well be illegal throughout Europe in the next 6-12 months as a result.
(on edit)
My bad it appears that this ban is temporary lasting until March 31, 2011:
Germany will temporarily ban naked short selling and naked credit-default swaps of euro-area government bonds at midnight after politicians blamed the practice for exacerbating the European debt crisis.
The ban will also apply to naked short selling in shares of 10 banks and insurers that will last until March 31, 2011, German financial regulator BaFin said today in an e-mailed statement. The step was needed because of “exceptional volatility” in euro-area bonds, the regulator said.
Makes it less likely that this is part of a trend.
And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.
So, we have seen 4 bank failures in the past 2 weeks, which is pretty awful, but better than the 22 in the 3 weeks prior to that.
So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):
Specifically, Tom Harkin is proposing a an amendment to the finance reform bill to limit ATM fees to 50¢.
I approve of the idea, particularly because it’s an in-your-face to the free market worshippers, but I’m not sure if it is a good idea for the finance reform bill.
As to the Al Franken book in question, it was the book Why Not Me?
Hw wrote his (fictitious) successful quest for the presidency using populist anger over ATM fees.
William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton:
Former President Bill Clinton says it is “time to lower the rhetoric and talk about the facts,” in reference to the government’s scrutiny of Wall Street.
In an exclusive interview with Maria Bartiromo, Clinton noted that while many financial firms are being questioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission, he does not believe that Goldman Sachs or CEO Lloyd Blankfein did anything illegal, based on what he’s seeing.
You know, when your spouse is in the cabinet, it’s a good idea not to shoot your mouth like this, even if she is Secretary of state.
I always that he was a slimy corporatist prick who looked good only in comparison to the ratf%$#s who tried to impeach him.
I believe that my view is validated.
Think Progress is all over it:
This morning, representatives from various front groups launched a new coordinated campaign to kill net neutrality. Speaking on Capitol Hill, these front groups took turns decrying the evils of the principle of a fair and unbiased Internet.
LULAC, which is funded by AT&T, called Net Neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet.”(LULAC was not present at the press conference. The Hispanic Leadership Fund, another group funded by the telecom industry and opposed to net neutrality, spoke at the event. We apologize for the error.) Americans for Prosperity — a corporate front group founded by oil billionaire David Koch but also funded by telecom interests — unveiled a new ad smearing net neutrality as a “government takeover” (the initial ad buy is $1.4 million dollars). And Grover Norquist, representing his “Americans for Tax Reform” corporate front group, said net neutrality is like what China does, “putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.” Watch it:
(Strikout original)
And once again, Declan McCullagh,* who can be relied on to take any lie from a telco industry lobbyist represent them them as truth, had published a gotcha article claiming that it was just a bunch of college kids, only he missed the following facts that his lobbyist friend sources neglected to tell him:
Fundamentally, if you read something from McCullagh that might have to bear on his rather extreme libertarian views, find a 2nd source to verify.
When push comes to shove, he will put forward the Cato Institute line ahead of the truth.
*No link this time, you can find the link at the Think Progress rebuttal. Mccullagh is, as Andrew Orlowsky notes, a “Draw by crayon libertarian,”†and so he quotes uncritically industry-funded astroturf groups in his article.
†He is also the guy who created the, “Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet,” myth, and he remains proud of that bit of hackery.
Byron Dorgan, who has not only been a strong advocate for financial reform, but predicted 15 years ago the clusterf%$# that would occur from Robert Rubin’s vision of finance, has proposed an amendment to the finance reform that would ban Naked (i.e. an insurance policy in which you bet on your neighbor‘s house burning down) Credit Default Swaps.
It appears now that the Senate leadership will not allow this amendment to be voted on, so the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota is threatening a filibuster:
In the Senate Democratic Caucus meeting today, Dorgan and other progressive senators pressed the leadership to allow their amendments to strengthen the bill to come to a vote. According to Dorgan, the leadership relented and said his amendment would be one of the ones to come to a vote.
But tonight, as Brian Beutler reports, when the list of amendments to be voted on was released, Dorgan’s was not among them. A frustrated Dorgan approached Dodd and Majority Leader Harry Reid on the floor this evening and told them he would filibuster financial reform if his amendment doesn’t get a vote. “I understand everybody thinks their amendment’s important, but the question of the unbelievable speculation in credit default swaps that have no insurable interest — if we can’t vote on something like that, given what we’ve seen in recent years, then it’s not really financial reform,” Dorgan told us.
I keep quoting the same article, which notes that specuilative insurance was recognized as a very bad thing 3264 years ago:
In 1746, Parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act, requiring anyone seeking to collect on an insurance contract to have an interest in the continued existence of the insured property. Thus was born the insured-interest doctrine. The indemnity doctrine, which precludes a buyer from insuring property for more than it’s worth, soon followed. The point of these rules is to limit insurance contracts to trading existing risks and not to create new risks by giving buyers of insurance incentive to destroy property. The doctrines have been part of insurance law in both England and the United States (which in 1746 were colonies under English common law) ever since.
But the masters of the universe who nearly killed us all insist that they know better.
Well, they don’t and they should not be listened to, because their interest is purely in their creating ways for them to make money, and if they crash the financial system every 20 years, well, they’ve got theirs.
The reason that Dorgan is not getting his vote is because the reform is so transparently the right thing to do: Just ask the average voter if their neighbor, the creepy one who seems to have strange visitors, should be able to take out insurance on that average voter’s house, so that the creep gets paid when the voter’s house gets burnt down mysteriously.
They won’t allow the vote because the bankers do not want it, and because if it comes up for a vote, they will have to pass it, because it is so transparently the right thing to do.
It’s enough to make me root for the “medicine for chickens” lady to beat Harry Reid in his reelection bid.
It’s jobless Thursday, and initial jobless claims fell from 448,000 to 444,000, though it should be noted that last week’s number of 448,000 was actually revised up from 444,000, meaning that the number is even flatter than the 4K change indicates.
That being said, the 4 week moving average fell by 9,000, which might indicate a slight trend downward in claims, if not for the fact that continuing claims rose, indicating that this may be less a matter of the economy picking up than it is a matter of employers simply running out of people to let go.
In terms of other metrics for the economy:
Consumer confidence, at least as surveyed by Investor’s Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, has risen in May, from 48.7 from 48.4, though numbers below 50 indicate pessimism.
The National Federation of Independent Business’ optimism index rose to 90.6 in April from 86.8 in March, which is firmly in the class of, “better, but still pretty weak tea.”
In transport and trade, we have the trade deficit hitting a 15-month high, which, while normally not a good thing, is right now, because we are well into “paradox of thrift” territory.
Additionally, we have the always worthwhile Calculated risk reporting that Diesel fuel consumption fell slightly, and rail traffic rose slightly, in April.
In real estate, mortgage applications are up, but only because refinance is up, purchase applications are down, indicating that we are seeing people who are trying to lock in low rates on homes that they already own.
Finally, the Bank of England has decided to maintain its monetary policies, keeping its benchmark rate at ½% (effectively zero), and maintaining its quantitative easing via asset purchases.
Remember when I said that Blanche Lincoln’s ambitious proposal to regulate banks was intended to fail?
I said that it was just a reelection ploy in a tight primary election.
Well, the US Senate is proving me right:
But they [Senate leadership, the Obama administration, etc.] may have gotten themselves stuck with it–at least for now. With their assent, the plan was authored by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), who designed it to guard her left flank against a somewhat formidable primary challenge, and has been boasting of it on populist grounds for weeks. And that according to Republican and Democratic Senate sources, has led Democrats to quietly agree to postpone any changes they decide to make to her proposal until After this Tuesday’s election has passed, to avoid embarrassing her in front of voters.
(emphasis original)
Lincoln pushed it out of committee knowing that it would be shredded by the Senate leadership.
She just wanted someone else to be the villain, preferably on Wednesday, May 19, or a few days after that.