And we'll drink and dance with one hand free, And have the world so easily

UPDATED below.

I don't suppose I have to spend a whole lot of time going over details of the whole AIG bailout and bonus brouhaha. It's pretty much everywhere at the moment.

The bonuses were kind of the icing on the cake to all the news from the past several months of the very companies crying "Help!" with their palms outstretched to the taxpayers turning around and being caught continuing their pampered lifestyles with spa vacations, superbowl parties and so on. They are like the trophy wife in a divorce wanting $100,000 a month in alimony to continue "the lifestyle I've become accustomed to". Like the sports star who will turn his nose up at a $15 million a year contract to hold out for $25 million a year with the reasoning "I have to feed my family", to which the average person wonders "What the hell do you feed them... bowls of diamonds??!!"

They are in a different world than the rest of us and can't understand (or, at least, don't care) that their greed and massive excess is disgusting to those "beneath" them in the economic scale. But the part that galls people the most is that it's now being practiced on the taxpayers dime. Taxes paid by people not worried about having to buy one less Rolls Royce or vacation home, but instead worried about staying in their one home and having money to put food in the refrigerator.

I did get a chuckle out of this:

Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.
“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses."

And that's the biggest outrage: Having to hand out big bonuses to the very same people - contracted or not - who put their company, and the globe, into the mess that necessitated the bailout in the first place. "The best and the brightest". Steering the ship into the rocks and then making Gilligan an admiral. Yeah. It all makes sense to me.

If they are the best and the brightest, then God help us all. Hannibal Lecter was considered extremely bright, but I certainly wouldn't turn my back on him.

Addendum by The Sailor: Just when you thought the AIG scandals couldn't get any worse, we the people,owners of 80% of AIG, are suing ourselves for tax refunds:

A.I.G. Sues U.S. for Return of $306 Million in Tax Payments

While the American International Group comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.
[...]
The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 27 in Federal District Court in Manhattan, details, among other things, certain tax-related dealings of the financial products unit, the once high-flying division that has been singled out for its role in A.I.G.’s financial crisis last fall. Other deals involved A.I.G. offshore entities whose function centers on executive compensation and include C. V. Starr & Company, a closely held concern controlled by Maurice R. Greenberg, A.I.G.’s former chairman, and the Starr International Company, a privately held enterprise incorporated in Panama, and commonly known as SICO.

Can you freakin' believe the sheer gall of these folks!?

I don't know why, I love her like I do

Via Crooks and Liars:

Former Cook County GOP Chairman beaten by wife for prostitutes

OK, what do you do when your wife comes home late at night unexpectedly, only to find you in the childrens playroom with two prostitutes, whereupon she begins beating on your dumb ass with a Guitar Hero controller and punching at you? Call the cops of course, and have her arrested! is the obvious answer.[...]

According to the police report, Eni Skoien became enraged and attacked her husband early Sunday morning when she discovered him with two prostitutes.

The police report said Gary Skoien acknowledged to authorities that the women were prostitutes. But he later denied that and tried unsuccessfully to have the report changed.
[...]
According to the report, 36-year-old Eni Skoien came home about 1:15 a.m. Sunday and, after discovering the women in the home, struck Gary Skoien, 55, with a closed fist and several times with a toy guitar. The beating left him bloodied, police said.
[...]
Following Sunday's incident, Gary Skoien petitioned for and received an order of protection barring his wife from their home and from contacting him or their children for 21 days.

Republican chutzpa, he gets 2 hookers and she has her home & children taken away!

And I hate to make light of this serious family tragedy, but I will anyway: In comments, (after all the 'but think about the children' comments), was "yes, think of the children, now they have to share a controller!"

But compared to this next guy that guy was a prince! Via Wikileaks:

The "dirty bomb" that disappeared

It has all the makings of a great story. But outside of the US state of Maine and select counter-terrorism circles, you won't have heard about it. For this is a story with all the right ingredients but one wrong ingredient.

On the right side is a leaked FBI intelligence report, Obama's inauguration, a multi-million dollar trust fund, a woman, uranium, thorium, the first attempt to build a "dirty bomb" on US soil, and, of course, murder.

On the wrong is the body of James G. Cummings, white supremacist millionaire, found in his Belfast home on December 9, 2008, shot to death.

After local police attended the scene, the FBI moved in and sealed off the building. Men in protective suits descended on the home but police refused to comment about what they found. Mrs. Cummings was taken into custody.

Then on January 12, 2009, Wikileaks revealed a confidential FBI field intelligence report on the incident as part of a Presidential inauguration threat analysis.[1]

According to the FBI report, Cummings had four lots of one gallon containers of bomb-grade hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium (also radioactive), lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium (radiation booster), boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon.
[...]
The FBI states it also seized literature on how to build “dirty bombs” and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60 and other radioactive materials.
[...]
Local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home told Maine reporters that Cummings was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with a swastika.

Hmm, maybe the relative punishments fit the crimes.

THIS is an actual terrorist! And a civilian broke the law and executed a terrorist. A terrorist that had gathered radioactive materials and explosives and literature to combine them to use them to assassinate the President and overthrow our government. Umm, where is the outrage amongst republicans!? Why isn't this story 24/7 on all major media outlets!?

Could it be because the 'victim' was white and rich and male?
I dunno, but this seems just like a '24-Jack Bauer' scenario that Cheney et al love to refer to.

p.s. Jack Bauer, just like Murphy Brown, are fictional characters. The rest of us live in a reality based world.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Curb Your Dogs

An avuncular word to a country I care about very much.

I know times are tough, and getting tougher by the second. Frustrations run high when the loaf on the table gets smaller every week, or doesn't even appear at all. But I want to pull your coat about something, and I'm not going to be kind or easy.

Today, I saw this item, and I must confess that I am somewhat disappointed in America at the moment.

Don't tell me it's just some random event, because it damn well isn't. This person represents your country at the interface between it and the rest of the world, and to have them spout such low-grade right-wing radio stupidities while failing to perform their duties is a troubling reminder of how jingoistic and isolationist the U.S.A. can be when the pressure mounts.

The only thing that is going to restore whatever you had before you lost it is enlightened interdependence. People helping people. Countries helping countries.
You need the rest of the world to help you get back on track and you cannot afford (especially considering the level of debt you are in and to whom it is owed) to have your representatives alienating those whom are attempting to add to your success rather than steal from it, such as your elected representatives have done.

Canada is your largest trading partner. Who else will buy your goods in such vast quantities and create a circle of success yet again, should the shoulders of your country once more be put to the grindstone? Albania?

Smarten the fuck up, America. Don't make us bury you - it has taken so long for you to begin bringing yourselves back from the Abyss.

love,

darkblack

Don't come around here no more

More on the idiocy of Jindal, Perry, and in this case, Mark Sanford:



I hope this results in their political suicide. 24% unemployment, and they're standing on their 'principles'.

Bastards.

The sweetest thing

Happy Lá Fhéile Pádraig:

is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa AD 385–461), one of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on March 17.

The day is the national holiday of Ireland. It is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland and a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland and Montserrat. In Canada, Great Britain, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.^[1]

So here's some great Irish music:

You're Unbelieveable

Gosh, the economy must be OK because I'm getting unsolicited snailmail from Ken Fisher! You know, Ken Fisher!, the Forbes columnist!! and CIO of Fisher Investments!!!

So I googled Mr Fisher and guess what? This is what he recommnded:

American International Group (nyse: AIG - news - people )

This giant insurer is lower than it was one, three, five or even eight years ago--back when it sold for 40 times earnings. Now it is just eight times earnings and 1.2 times annual revenue. But with an exceptionally strong presence in insurance and broader finance, and slow but steady growth, it will enjoy a good run in the stock market in 2008.

And that was in 2008.

Now to be fair I've also been solicited by folks who want to lower my mortgage, (I don't own a home,) give me great deals on a new car and think I should take out a second mortgage to pay down my credit card bills, (I still don't own a home & I pay my debit/credit card balance every month. Woo, hoo! Actual 0%!)

But how bad does Kenny Boy have to be doing that he sends out a cold call snailmail that offers me free! FREE!!1! "The Eight Biggest Mistakes Investors Make And How To Avoid Them" which he put together "solely for financially successful individuals."

Did I mention it was FREE!!1!!9!

Well of course he put them together for people with money, who else can afford snake oil!? (Jeebus, Kenny on South Park has a better record than you do!)

Now I repeatedly tried to contact Mr Fisher to interview him, but apparently he's always in a meeting ... yeah, probably all that work he has to do to oversee the boiler room operators that are taking the calls.

I really hate these bastards that have preyed on us for years and finally got caught in their Fonzi [sic] schemes.

The fact that Kenny Boy has to resort to cold calls again is a bit of schadenfreude for me, but I take no pleasure in seeing my 401(k) lose 40% its value and very little pleasure in seeing my CDs at 1.09%.

But I'm truly thankful that I still have a job and retirement accounts and health insurance.

BTW, just in case no one got the title of the post, it's by INXS. And the title & band name really sums it up.

And since I couldn't find the YouTube for INXS I'll leave you with a bit of basic accounting:

Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

25 or 6 to 4

I was reading Dr. Sardonicus at Pole Hill Sanitarium and he had an interesting post a few days ago.

Albums that changed your life

Well. That's a deep subject.

But I got to thinking, there are some albums that may have affected my life. I'm not saying they changed it, they were probably more reflective of changes I had already made or wanted to make, but the good Dr's qualifier says "These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions."

I would take the rules one step further.

You have to hear the album in your mind. Not the dental drill that makes up a pop tune you can't get out of your head, but an album you can imagine that 'band playing in my head.'

So hear goes albums that changed my life, in no particular order:

Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
Are You Experienced
(I didn't appreciate Hendrix until I got stoned. Take that For What What It's worth.)

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
(I wasn't even stoned, just a great awakening.)

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
(A few years later, but it's deeper and more personal to me.)

Spirit - 12 Dreams of Dr Sardonicus
(One of the best albums ever. As far as I'm concerned, it ranks right up there with the Dark Side of the Moon and Abbey Road albums. It's brilliant in production, in composition, in musicianship.)

Yes - Yessongs
(Best live performances and best produced live album evah IMHO! p.s. I did see the tour, 3 times, and bought the LPs, the 8 tracks, the cassettes, the CDs ... yeah, I kinda liked it.
This is the band and the album that made me want to be a sound engineer! (Thank you Eddie Offord!))

Beatles - Revolver
Rubber Soul
White Album
Sgt Pepper's
Abbey Road
(These albums can turn your world around whether your 8 or 80. And the songs sound simple and true ... and while they're true they aren't simple. There's always a bridge to drive off, but the turnaround brings you back.)

Grateful Dead - American Beauty
(I think I recall the Dead saying this was their least favorite album. I don't care. I loved the songs, all of them, and I liked that they were great songs and didn't have 20 minutes of ego boo for each player. Sometimes discipline is a good thing.)

Leon Russell - Hank Wilson's Back
(1st exposure to traditional country, led to a love of traditional country. Expanded my horizons so far I went out and bought the originals and started listening to Bob Wills, George Jones, Hank, Patsy, shucks, the list just goes on an' on.)

Seatrain - Seatrain
(1st exposure to 'new grass', led to a love of bluegrass. Even before country, blue grass songs were songs that seemed simple but were refined thru time to distill their essence. My only fault with blue grass today is that it became faster and faster so folks could show off their licks and not honor the music.)

Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon
(I listened to this album over and over. I especially listened to it when I was driving home from a 12am - 8am job and would cue up 'Morgantown' to get past the first few miles.

CSNY - 4 Way Street
(I could learn the chords and play (badly) for my friends. It made a difference in my life because I knew then I can do this! ... badly.)

Willie Nelson - Stardust
(1st exposure to standards, lead to a love of standards. I went back/forward so now I love listening to Frank Sinatra and Diana Krall)

But we were just talking about albums. Sometimes there are songs that changed your life. You're welcome to leave either in comments.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Young Love, First Love

Palin daughter splits from fiance

Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has split from her fiance, Levi Johnston.

Miss Palin's pregnancy by Mr Johnston, 19, made headlines shortly after Sarah Palin was named as John McCain's running mate in last year's elections.

The couple's son, Tripp Johnston, was born in December.

Mr Johnston told Associated Press (AP) that the couple had mutually decided "a while ago" to end their three-year relationship

Speaking outside his family's trailer home in Wasilla, north of Anchorage, Mr Johnston said some speculation about the break-up, circulating on the internet, had been inaccurate.
[...]
The Alaska governor revealed her daughter's pregnancy - and engagement - just days after being named as the Republican vice-presidential candidate by John McCain.

Mrs Palin is a social conservative who is opposed to abortion and the pregnancy became a talking point during the campaign.

In December, Mrs Palin said that her daughter and Mr Johnston were "committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished, to provide a loving and secure environment for their child."

Obviously Sarah Palin's daughter was edumacated in the Republican School of Birth Control, AKA "Just Say No."

The Grand Obstructionist Party thinks that if we don't tell kids about sex and birth control they won't have sex. Studies show that if you don't inform kids about sex and birth control they'll still have sex, just not birth control. And that includes the kids who pledged abstinence!

In addition: "Mr Johnston told Associated Press (AP) that the couple had mutually decided "a while ago" to end their three-year relationship"
Umm, I'm guessing that would have been November 5th, 2008!

And did anyone else notice that their 'three-year relationship' started when she was 15! Gosh, where were the parents!?

I am so sick of republican hypocrisy. They actually celebrated this unwed mother's pregnancy while condemning unwed mothers at the same time!

And I feel sorry for the unwed couple who were thrust in the spotlight by Sarah Palin's naked ambition and trotted out as shining examples of 'family values.'



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Play the game everyone play the game

The other day we all got to see the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer on-air "feud" reach its conclusion with an appearance by CNBC's "Mad Money" man on the Daily Show. But this wasn't for a debate on the issues. Cramer knew he had no ammo to fire back as Stewart certainly had the "goods" on Cramer via indisputable video clips of Jim basically bragging about how someone clever like him and others could manipulate the activity on the market while a clueless (at best) SEC stood by slack-jawed and silent.

Cramer's appearance, to me, seemed more like a naughty boy caught smoking behind the woodshed being marched in front of his parents to sheepishly face the music, attempting damage control with weak-at-best defenses, but mostly just sweating and wanting the moment to hurry up and pass. At the end of the show you could almost see the huge sigh of relief burst forth from him. He knew his dismissals of Jon Stewart being a "comedian" during the past week wasn't getting him any further out of the exposed mess he was in, so he had little choice but to go on the Daily Show and take it on the chin and hope that finally made it all go away.

I don't see how after all that has gone down he'll be able to go back and make the stock situation "entertaining" again. People don't tend to laugh as much at silly sound effects after they've lost half or more of their retirement nest egg.

I won't go into everything covered by Jon Stewart, but you can see the entire episode here.

Here are a few of the past quotes on video that Cramer could hardly defend:

"A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund, and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity before hand that could drive the futures," Cramer said. "It doesn't take much money. Or, if I were long and I would want to make things a little bit rosy, I would go in and take a bunch of stocks and make sure they are higher–maybe commit $5 million in capital and I could affect it. Now, you need maybe $10 million in capital to knock the stuff down. But it's a fun game. And it's a lucrative game."

"What's important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view–it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction," Cramer advises. "You can't take any chances."

"You can't foment," Cramer says. "That's a violation. You can't create yourself an impression that a stock is down. But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn't understand it. That's the only sense that I would say that it is illegal. But a hedge fund that is not up a lot really has to do a lot to save itself. This is blatantly illegal. But when you have six days and your company may be in doubt because you are down, I think it is really important to foment. If I were one of these guys, foment an impression that Research In Motion isn't any good."

"Get people talking about it as if something is wrong with RIM," Cramer advises. "Then you would call the (Wall Street) Journal and talk the bozo reporter on Research in Motion and you would feed that Palm has got a killer it is going to give. These are the things that you must do on a day like today. And if you are not doing it, maybe you shouldn't be in the game."

"I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a fucking game," Stewart told Cramer.

It's quite clear Stewart's point was that nobody could count on long term investments when half the market was glorified gambling on financial instruments nobody quite understood, propped up by a class of intellectually dishonest hacks and, yes, the media has been an accomplice to promoting this house of cards. Jim Cramer admitted as much - that Stewart was right in his criticism.

And Jon Stewart was right when he said this is not about Jim Cramer. But hopefully this is just another step in the march to expose the serious loopholes in the whole system that allowed a group of greedy sharks to profit at the expense of everyone else, and lead to the changes needed to overhaul this system with the necessary oversight, regulations and checks and balances to make sure that corrupt get-rich-quick scum can't trash the economy again for their own profit, while those who SHOULD be policing it are either out to lunch or in on the game.

Come along and sing a song And join the jamboree

Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford, Rick Perry: you ungrateful hypocritical ideologue bastards:

In a budget proposal released Friday afternoon, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal indicated he is only rejecting $98 million of the federal stimulus funds due his state.

That figure is far less than the $700 million South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has indicated he may reject if the federal government does not allow Sanford to use that money to pay down his state's debt.

. . . Jindal's announcement also comes a day after Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he would reject the $555 million in federal funds direct to his state to expand unemployment benefits.

Kids, the money isn't to pay down your state's debt, that's your own goddam problem. The money is for, hold on now, STIMULUS of the economy, and a major part of that is to extend unemployment benefits. Hear that Gov. Goodhair? Because people, when they are either employed or getting unemplyment benefits, inject money into the economy.

But no, says Gov. Jindal (R-OverHisHead):

Gov. Bobby Jindal said Friday he doesn’t want Louisiana to tap into $98 million in stimulus money for expanding unemployment benefits for thousands of people who wouldn’t normally be eligible to receive them.

The Republican governor repeatedly had said he wasn’t sure the state should draw down all the stimulus money it’s eligible to receive, but the announcement was the first detail he’s offered about dollars he wants to refuse.

. . . The dollars that Jindal intends to reject could provide unemployment aid to 4,000 to 6,000 more Louisiana residents, the state labor department estimates. But the acceptance would require a permanent change in state law that would force businesses to pay higher unemployment taxes once the federal dollars run out, Jindal said.

Yep, we can't offer unemployment to those poor people who don't have jobs because TAXESTAXESTAXES!! Is this even true?

The basic thought is that if unemployment benefits are expanded to people previously not eligible, the when the Stimulus bucks run out, the state will have to raise taxes to keep up the benefits.

While googling the hell out of this, I found many weasel words: might, may, could, possibly, especially when reading news reports about the above-named Senators, and on Right-wing blogs. But little in the way of actual attribution to the actual text of the actual stimulus bill.

So I dunno. Maybe Gov's Jindal, Sanford, and Perry are right, that they would have to raise taxes to fix the clusterfuck that their state economies have become. Heck, even here in CA, Ahnuld has agreed to a state tax increase, because, well, we need it!

I think the House and the Senate missed a wonderful opportunity to make the Stimulus all-in: you take all, or nothing.

Or maybe Bobby, Mark, and Rick are wrong. Or maybe they're just actors on the Mickey Mouse Club; they certainly sound like it. If they were, I'd believe them more. Regardless, the Republican party has dwindled in relevance to somewhere just above the WCTU, and far below the Mickey Mouse Club: