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Litigation:  “Recreational”, “Sport” And  “Diversionary” . . . And The “Department Of Just-Us” (December 21, 2015)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Courts, Department of, Federal Reserve, Russia, Sports, Wall Street on December 21, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “The definition varies yet ‘Recreational Litigation’ is usually defined as an unfounded claim or defense advanced by someone with unlimited funds who uses bullying techniques to harass and often bankrupt a small and often defenseless person or entity for grins.”

J          “Or for some ulterior purpose.  I call it ‘Sport Litigation’ because it is so unsporting.  The ‘Department of Just-Us’ is the richest and most powerful player in the American Legal Game.”

K          “FIFA is corrupt to the core.  So is Wall Street.  The United States has no business investigating and prosecuting FIFA corruption.  The United States does have legitimate business investigating and prosecuting Wall Street corruption.”

J          “‘Sport Litigation’ is the felicitous term.”

K          “I may be wrong, yet I have this nagging suspicion that the government may be trying to pressure FIFA not to allow Russia to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup.”

J          “Prostituting the Beautiful Game.  Ugly.”

. . .

K          “The ‘Department of Just-Us’ as you call it long ago served notice that the banksters are above and beyond the law.  The FIFA case may be a way for the ‘Department of Just-Us’ to serve notice that anyone who gets out of line will get it.  And also to distract us from the real problems and the real danger.”

J          “The ‘Department of Offense’ is engaged in endless wars and fear generation to distract us from the inevitable consequences of the actions and inactions of their friends and comrades at the ‘Department of Treasure’ and the Federal Reserve.”    

K          “What about describing it as ‘Diversionary Litigation’ designed to make the public believe that evil foreigners are being prosecuted while actually diverting attention from the real problems and the real danger.”

. . .  

[See the e-commentary at Schooling The Apparatchiks For The Kleptocrats (December 7, 2015).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”  H. L. Mencken

May the farce be with you.

Savor the solstice; Nature still sustains.

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To Raise Or Not To Raise? (December 14, 2015)  

Posted in Bureaucracy, Federal Reserve, Interest Rates, Movie Reference, Sports, Wall Street on December 14, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “That is the answer.”

2          “They can’t raise it, they can’t maintain it, they can’t lower it.  They are not in a stalemate because they are in checkmate.”

1          “Game over?”

. . .

2          “A decision not to decide is a decision.  The Fed has been deciding not to decide and has decided to destroy the real economy since at least 2008.  If they decide to raise the rate a nominal .125 or .250 percent, they may be able to get away with it.  Anything more substantial will tip over this unreal and surreal economy of their contriving.  Interest rate derivative swaps will strain, fragile emerging markets will sag and the federal government will be forced to spend more of the budget on interest payments.”

1          “They are said to need to show that they are tough guys and gals who are trying to return to a real economy.  They are said to need to establish ‘Wall Street cred’.”

2          “They have no ‘Main Street cred’.  At least among the few dozen folks who give a cred.”

. . .

1          “So will they raise the interest rate?  Yes or no?  If they do, how much?  .125?  .250?”

2          “The question is not ‘will’ they but ‘should’ they raise the interest rate.”

. . .

1          “A betting pool.  There you go.  We might as well have fun.”

2          “No they should not.  .125 to appear to be doing something.  The effective rate now may hover near an average of .100, so they may be able to do something without doing anything.”

1          “Maybe.  .250 to feign cred.  And then be able to reverse gears.”

2          “See we shall.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Interest Rates ‘risin (March 30, 2015).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“Do.  Or do not do.  There is no try.”  Yoda

What happens when you run out of altitude, airspeed and ideas all at the same time?

Otter:  “I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”

Bluto:  “We’re just the guys to do it.”

                                                    “Animal House” movie (1978)

Fed up yet?

“In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.”  Isaac Asimov

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Schooling The Apparatchiks For The Kleptocrats (December 7, 2015)

Posted in Bureaucracy, Education, Kleptocracy, O'Bama, Schooling, Wall Street on December 7, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J          “Harvard and Yale are in business to make a profit and provide the foot soldiers to protect those making a profit.  Columbia has stepped up its game.  Both Eric Holder and Lonny Breuer each bagged a pair of degrees from Columbia and dutifully served Wall Street while on the public pay roll.  First Covington & Burling, then time in the Department of Justice (?), and then back to C & B to protect the Owners.  They did their time in government, but they did not encourage the criminal banksters to do their time in government custody.”

K          “I have said for some time that Morningside Heights is in business to protect its friends down the road in Manhattan.  Once Wall Street took a controlling stake in O’Bama, Inc., it was game over.  The game was over on or before January 20, 2009, yet it did not make that night’s sports highlights.” 

J          “The grand irony is that rather than quash any and all prosecutions of Wall Street fraud, Holder and Breuer could have aided and abetted their past and future colleagues by allowing them to get rich quashing government subpoenas.” 

K          “And then toss in Glenn Hubbard, a deceptive and dishonest errand boy for the banks and corporations.  Where is he proselytizing and propagandizing?”

. . .   

K          “On the other hand, Columbia also provides a haven for Joseph Stiglitz and James Hansen.”

J          “And William Kunstler did not toil and moil for C & B.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at America’s Fraud Factories (October 18, 2010), On Merit and the Meritocracy (January 11, 2010), Close the Harvard Business School (February 23, 2009) and Higher Education Tomorrow (November 27, 2006).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Politicians should dress like race car drivers.  At least we would know who their corporate sponsors are.

74 years today.

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They Can Print Money (November 2, 2015)

Posted in Bail In, Bailout/Bribe, Bankruptcy, Banks and Banking System, FDIC, Federal Reserve, Kleptocracy, TARP, Wall Street on November 2, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

Q          “The FDIC can simply print money.”

B          “Maybe.  However, the response to the Big Jolt may be . . . nuanced?  By the government?  Let me explain.  Or at least confuse the issue.”

. . .

Q          “By any metric – economically, morally, psychologically, ethically, metaphysically, generationally – TARP was a grand fraud perpetrated on the American people.  And the central message is crystal clear – everyone in power knows that there are no limits or restraints of any kind to government criminality at the top.  They can simply print money.”

B          “Maybe.  During what I call the Financial Crime of 2008, the government could have nationalized the banks, but those in power allowed the banks to nationalize the government, in particular the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.  The Fed and Treasury now have carte blanc to do anything that serves the interests of their Owners on Wall Street and with the Big Banks.  However, the FDIC may not have that absolute freedom and immunity from liability and accountability.  The bureaucrats in the bureaucracy at the FDIC bureaucracy may behave like bureaucrats.  Some risk-averse bureaucrat may seize up and say that she or he will not make the decision to commit the agency to exceed its authority because he or she may not have enough stroke to obtain immunity.”

Q          “The most risk-averse course of action still is to print money or create electrons.”

B          “Maybe.  The Owners have agreed that ‘bail ins’ are the answer to their self-created problem.  At some point, however, even J. Q. Public may say ‘bastante’ and swing by the bank and demand his or her deposits.” 

Q          “They will hand out a plastic card in lieu of physical cash.  Print money or produce plastic.  There is no difference.”

. . .

B          “Maybe.  Except that the fundamental problem today is not liquidity, it is solvency.  The system is insolvent.  Printing more money is akin to distributing cigarette butts.  The bucks, like butts, soon will not be cherished.”

Q          “At that point, we may be bartering cigarettes.”

B          “Maybe.  If they are available.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at (M)End The Fed (July 11, 2011).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank; give a man a bank and he can rob the world

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Smedley And Ernest On Our Friend “War”; The “Racket” Continues (September 7, 2015)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Book Reference, Magazine Reference, Military, Oil, Wall Street, War on September 7, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

_          “Four score years ago this month, the world of arts and letters and the world awoke to a pair of trenchant commentaries on our friend ‘War’ written by two scholars who had spent time in the trenches and developed the ‘street cred’ to command attention and respect.  Smedley D. Butler was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history who also should have won a Nobel Peace Prize.  Ernest Hemingway wrote stuff.  We should listen.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary presented on a prior Memorial Day on this Labor Day at In Memoriam (May 26, 2014).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.  In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.  I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.  I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.  I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.  I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912.  I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.  I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.  In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.  Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.  The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts.  I operated on three continents.”  Smedley D. Butler in a poem in the September 1935 issue of the magazine “Common Sense” that later become an overlooked classic. 

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.  But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying.  You will die like a dog for no good reason. . . .  The only way to combat the murder that is war is to show the dirty combinations that make it and the criminals and swine that hope for it and the idiotic way they run it when they get it so that an honest man will distrust it as he would a racket and refuse to be enslaved into it.”  Ernest Hemingway in “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter,” in a September 1935 issue of the magazine “Esquire”.

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The Choice:  Pro War And Pro-Wall Street Candidate v. Pro War And Pro-Wall Street Candidate (April 13, 2015)

Posted in Bush, Clinton, Elections, Journalism, Newspapers, Presidency, Press/Media, Wall Street, War on April 13, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1        “The election is already over.  One party nominates a candidate who is pro war and pro-Wall Street and the other party nominates a candidate who is pro war and pro-Wall Street.”

C2       “And if you demur in a public forum, the popular press will dismiss you as an isolationist for questioning war and as a populist for supporting an equitable and sustainable economy.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at The First Look At The “Second Political Party” (January 3, 2011).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Bush III

Clinton II

Jeb Clinton

Hillary Bush

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