It's amazing how relevant Upton Sinclair remains to this day:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

"Fascism is capitalism plus murder. " I expect Sinclair was referring to Germany at the time (1944).

Do I hear a drone?

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/03/26/nprpro-publica-story-on-fanniefreddie-principal-mod-analysis-falls-apart/

Tom Lawler, the housing economist and former chief economist at Fannie Mae, has a commentary up that calls into serious question that NPR/Pro Publica story about how Fannie and Freddie have some secret new analysis showing that principal reductions would be not only cost-effective for the GSEs, but cost-effective to the taxpayer.

Let me say up front that I believe, based on all the analysis I have read, that principal reductions would be long-run positive over foreclosures in cases where the borrower has an ability to pay. But that’s not quite the issue here. The issue is that NPR and Pro Publica are claiming that some secret analysis exists where even Fannie and Freddie believe this. That puts the onus squarely on Ed DeMarco, and makes him more of a villain holding back the housing rebound.

Lawler takes issue with one part of the NPR/Pro Publica story, the part which claims that “loan forgiveness wouldn’t just help hundreds of thousands of families (stay) in their homes,” but that also “it would help taxpayers” by saving Freddie and Fannie money. That’s not true, Lawler says, because the only way principal reductions end up saving Freddie and Fannie money is through the recently super-sized HAMP incentives for principal reductions going to them. And of course, those incentive payments, routed through TARP, come from taxpayers.

But Lawler reveals a bit too much here. Check it out:



Unless I miss my guess, Lawler, who as former chief economist for Fannie is in a position to know, just blew up the NPR/Pro Publica story. Because he’s saying here that the GSE analysis thus far does not support principal reductions. That’s a direct contradiction to the NPR/Pro Publica story. Their story is based on some new, secret analysis, which Lawler implies doesn’t exist. This is the story I’ve heard as well – NPR and Pro Publica based their claim of “new analysis” on some informal document...MORE AT LINK

SUPPORTING LINKS:

Fannie and Freddie: Slashing Mortgages Is Good Business

http://www.propublica.org/article/fannie-and-freddie-slashing-mortgages-is-good-business

Lawler on possible Fannie and Freddie Principal Reductions

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/03/lawler-on-possible-fannie-and-freddie.html

Bill Black on How the Jumpstart Obama’s Bucket Shops Act is Just Another in a Long Series of Fraud-Promoting Legislation

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/03/bill-black-on-how-the-jumpstart-obamas-bucket-shops-act-is-just-another-in-a-long-series-of-fraud-promoting-legislation.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives.

*****************************************************************

The imminent passage of the fraud-friendly JOBS Act caused me to reflect on the fact that the worst anti-regulatory travesties in the financial sphere have had broad, bipartisan support. The Garn-St Germain Act of 1982, which deregulated savings and loans (S&Ls) and helped drive the debacle, was passed with virtually no opposition. The Texas and California S&L deregulation acts – the two states that “won” the regulatory “race to the bottom” – passed with virtually no opposition. Texas S&L failures caused over 40% of total S&L losses and California failures caused roughly 25% of total losses. In 1984, a majority of the members of the House of Representatives, including Newt Gingrich and most of the leadership of both parties, co-sponsored a resolution calling on us to cease our reregulation of the S&L industry.

The Competitive Equality in Banking Act of 1987 (CEBA) was the product of two cynical political deals. The context was that the Reagan administration refused to allow the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) to admit that there was a crisis requiring governmental funds and refused to allow FSLIC to draw any funds on its Treasury credit line. We had spent all but $500 million in the FSLIC fund closing some of the worst S&L control frauds. The S&L industry had over $1 trillion in liabilities and was deeply insolvent, so we were running the insurance fund on fumes and dreading a potential nationwide run. Treasury and FSLIC ginned up a convoluted means of FSLIC receiving the proceeds of a $15 billion (FICO) bond issuance. The repayment of the FICO bonds rested in large part on taking capital and future earnings from the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs). The industry owned the FHLBs, so the S&Ls’ interest in the FHLBs’ capital was treated on their financial statements as an asset. Using the FHLBs’ capital to “defease” the FICO bonds refduced every S&L’s reported capital. The exceptionally powerful S&L trade association (the “League”) opposed the plan. It preferred that the government, rather than the healthier members of the industry, pay to resolve failed S&Ls. Trade associations also do not want to lose members through government closures.

The S&L control frauds saw the FSLIC recapitalization bill as an opportunity. They had disproportionate political power because political interference was their best guarantee of delaying our closure of their S&L. My contemporaneous joke was that the frauds’ always obtained their highest return on assets from their political contributions. The frauds’ priorities were to make it far harder for the regulators to take action against them and to get FSLIC to use its funds to bail out failed S&Ls rather than close them. A large FSLIC recapitalization could be a very good thing for the frauds if the funds were given to “their” S&Ls while they remained in control.

The first political deal was between the frauds and the League. It was called the “Faustian bargain.” The League agreed to support “forbearance” provisions drafted by the frauds’ lawyers that were cleverly designed to make it difficult for us to take enforcement actions and appoint receivers. The frauds agreed to stall passage of the bill and to support the League’s proposed reduction in FICO bond issuances to $5 billion. (The contemporaneous joke was that if we flew into DFW rented a car and drove towards downtown Dallas we would exhaust the $5 billion closing the failed S&L we passed en route before we made it to Dallas.) The S&L frauds in Texas had exceptional political power. The Faustian bargain worked. Speaker of the House James Wright held the FSLIC recapitalization bill “hostage” to extort regulatory favors for a series of Texas S&L frauds and a huge bankrupt borrower from the frauds. Charles Keating, who controlled Lincoln Savings, had already used Alan Greenspan as a lobbyist (plus large political contributions) to recruit the five Senators (Cranston, DeConcini, Glenn, McCain, and Riegle) who would become infamous as “the Keating Five.” They made a secret bipartisan effort in April 1987 to prevent the agency from taking enforcement action against Lincoln Savings’ massive, fatal violation of the rules restricting direct investments. (Speaker Wright later joined their effort.) Senator Cranston, at Keating’s behest, put a secret “hold” on the FSLIC recapitalization bill in 1986. The combined efforts of the frauds’ political cronies prevented passage of the bill in 1986.

The second cynical deal was struck in 1987 by the Reagan administration and Speaker Wright....MORE AT LINK

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/03/not-so-dumb-consumers-shun-occs-bogus-foreclosure-reviews.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Consumers seem to have wised up to the fact that the Administration is not on their side, particularly as far as housing is concerned.

John Walsh, the acting director of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, gave a speech today at the National Interagency Community Reinvestment Conference that had so many whoppers in it that it was hard to keep track of them all. But it also contained an important bit of information that suggested that homeowners aren’t buying the bank-friendly OCC’s pretense to be on their side. Long-standing readers may recall that the OCC entered into consent decrees with 14 major servicers last April. The OCC went that route as a way to end run the CFPB, which at the time seemed to have the ear of state attorneys general. The CFPB was a threat because it was providing analyses at the state AGs’ request that suggested that the states had good grounds for seeking substantial damages from banks (note that the $20-$30 billion figure that had been leaked was mere disgorgement. Damages would have been on top of that). Can’t have that, now can we?

When the consent order was released, Adam Levitin and yours truly focused on the rife-for-abuse idea of having contractors selected by the banks perform the servicer reviews. Why do we have regulators if they can’t be bothered to do their job? And predictably, Michael Olenick, Francine McKenna and your humble blogger found examples of foreclosure review contractors with glaring conflicts. One component of the OCC program was “independent” foreclosure reviews that would be offered to borrowers to determine if they had been harmed by a foreclosure and provide restitution. You have to understand that this was never a good faith effort, even though HUD secretary Donovan trumpeted these assessments as an important part of “social justice.” The purpose of every new bank review process implemented since the Obama administration took office has been to go through the motions of being thorough (typically not convincingly, as with the first stress test and the Foreclosure Task Force demonstrate ) and give a clean bill of health. Having the OCC look at a whole passel of foreclosures and say, “See, the overwhelming majority were OK” would be an important step in turning the clock back to before the robosigning scandal broke.

Abigail Field reported that an insider leaked that the process was being managed aggressively so as to ignore borrower problems. I strongly suggest you read her post in full. A key section:



With this as background, it’s pretty hard to stomach patent falsehoods like this in Walsh’s speech:



Let’s see…who chose these reviewers? The banks. Who is paying their bills? The banks. Who is a potential future client if all goes smoothly? The banks. And Walsh seriously expects us to believe the reviewers are independent, even before we get to the rampant conflicts?

The one sort of candid part of Walsh’s speech is where he discusses how the OCC servicer reviews were developed independent of the Federal/state mortgage settlement, but he manages to skip over how that came to pass.

But then we get this part:



Did you get that? The OCC has done a massive outreach, not just mailing but advertising in a number of targeted outlets and securing the help of community housing groups. And what was the response rate? Less than 3%. No wonder the OCC extended the deadline.

Yes, as Walsh makes clear in his speech, the OCC’s objective isn’t to investigate foreclosures but to put the foreclosure problem behind them, which is tantamount to covering it up. As reader MBS Guy noted:


So do your friends and contacts as favor. Circulate this post to them and urge them to pass it on to anyone who might be a candidate for the OCC foreclosure reviews. Warn them that it’s jerry rigged in favor of the banks and will serve to prejudice any legal action they might decide to take against them.

If so, WHY?

I for one would like to test that theory.

I wouldn't nuke them, exactly. More like RECYCLE them.

That was after 10 years of employment with a large multistate banking corp.

Otherwise, how do you cash a check?

As for money orders and my teacher check, there's a place here that will cash them for $1 per thousand - way cheaper than the buffet of charges any bank would charge.

I don't have an account of any sort with any type of banking institution. We do mortgages on owner finance, but mostly we just pay cash. No credit cards, either.

I figure I have literally saved a million dollars in the last 30+ years, all told.

Actually, with the stress of trying to care for a depressed person bent on neglecting Life to death over, and the time freed up, this wasn't such a bad week.

Aside from the Condo board, of course. There's always the board....

they always make me feel like i did something wrong.

I'm on vacation right now, but I may get fired next week. And I'm not sure I'll care.

here's to you miss tansy!

fortunately I am still intact but I really hate to take blame when I asked questions all along. We are so short handed and stretched so thin. They don't want to admit that a large part of the problem is they have cut too much in all the wrong places. So their solution is to throw you under the bus.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_EUROPE_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-03-30-05-18-04

BRUSSELS (AP) -- Inflation in the 17 countries that use the euro did not fall as much as predicted during March, in a further sign that rising oil prices are having an impact on the countries' economies.

Figures from Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, showed inflation in the eurozone in the year to March fell to 2.6 percent from 2.7 percent the previous month.

The decline was not as big as predicted. The consensus in the markets was for the rate to fall to 2.5 percent.

Inflation in the eurozone remains above the European Central Bank's target of keeping price rises just below 2 percent. That suggests that the ECB has less room to cut interest rates further if it wanted to. It meets again next week and the expectation is that the benchmark interest rate will be maintained at 1 percent.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OIL_PRICES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-03-30-00-50-52

SINGAPORE (AP) -- Oil prices dwelled near six-week lows Friday in Asia amid signs Western powers plan to release strategic crude reserves soon.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 63 cents to $103.41 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract dived $2.63 to settle at $102.78 per barrel in New York on Thursday.

Brent crude for May delivery was up 35 cents at $122.74 per barrel in London.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Thursday that there's a "good chance" that the U.S. and Europe will agree to release some of their oil reserves. Investors are mulling how much the additional supply would lower oil prices, which have jumped from $75 in October.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/03/19/120319crat_atlarge_menand


Mitt Romney once made a ton of money in private equity. He thinks that can tell us what kind of President he would be

Once, when winters were cold and the world seemed large, creatures roamed the earth who were permissive on social issues and at ease with big government, yet remained ever faithful to the gods of business and finance. Their principles were abstract but broad-minded: tolerance, free trade, and a belief in something called the American Way. Their personal tastes were conventional. They were surprisingly allergic to indecorum, and disinclined to question the status quo. But they were not small-town or provincial; they were Wall Streeters, not Main Streeters. Their vista was international. They were private-sector types who answered the call to public service. They were liberal Republicans. Nelson Rockefeller was such a creature. So were Prescott Bush, William Scranton, Charles Percy, John Lindsay, Mark Hatfield, Elliot Richardson, and George Romney.

Then, one year, a powerful meteor struck the planet, and, virtually overnight, the entire species was wiped out. The meteor’s name was Ronald Reagan. Political paleontologists, looking back at the fossil record, can detect signs pointing to the organism’s imminent extinction that predate the Reagan era. Richard Nixon, for example, showed that a pro-business, big-government Republican, by appealing to suburban anti-Communism and white working-class resentment, could take a populist road to the White House. Men like Rockefeller and Romney despised Nixon; but they could never beat him. Liberal Republicans did not like to get into the political mud.

Everything in Michael Kranish and Scott Helman’s biography “The Real Romney” (HarperCollins) confirms the view that until 2005 Mitt Romney was a liberal Republican cryogenically preserved from the pre-Reagan era. He was a liberal on social issues, such as abortion and gay rights; a champion of government programs, such as universal health care; an anti-protectionist, “open door” internationalist; a private-sector multimillionaire who was also a personal square, completely uninterested in life-style “experimentation”; a reflexively patriotic, flag-pin-in-the-lapel sort of fellow; a wealthy man possessed of the slightly daft notion that although he had been born to privilege, every American has the opportunity (and the wish) to live as he does; a patrician with a deep sense of noblesse oblige. Since 2005, Romney has made himself interesting by getting a lot of people, including those who might vote for him and those who definitely will not, obsessed with whether, and to what extent, and in spite of anything to the contrary he might be saying on the campaign trail, he is still that person.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/03/19/120319crat_atlarge_menand#ixzz1qbS7viXT

http://dailyreckoning.com/bashing-buffett-once-again-with-feeling/

...“Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” Buffett pleaded last summer in an infamous op-ed piece for the New York Times. “Our leaders have asked for ‘shared sacrifice.’ But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched…Last year,” Buffett continued, “my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.”

Ah shucks!… Gee whiz!… and Golly gosh! Mr. Buffett must feel just awful about this injustice. If only he had discovered it earlier, he could have paid tens of billions of dollars more in taxes during his lifetime. And, gee willickers, he could have told all his mega-rich friends about his great discovery so that they, too, could have paid tens of billions of dollars more in taxes. Golly gee, isn’t that just the way life is? You always discover the best stuff after it’s too late to do anything about it. It’s just too darn bad that Buffett and his mega-rich friends had already amassed their mega-billions of dollars during the “unfair” tax regime of the last two or three decades before Buffett discovered how unfair it was. But, shucks, you can’t turn back the clock. So despite Buffett’s profound regret, he will simply have to keep all those billions of dollars that the IRS did not permit him to contribute to the US government. Gee whiz…life just ain’t fair sometimes. You try to be magnanimous with the US government and the IRS just won’t let you. Hey, but at least you can publicly proscribe for others the identical high-tax regime that you methodically and assiduously avoided throughout a career spanning several decades.

And fortunately for the US government, there is a brand-new generation of folks who aspire to become billionaires like Buffett, or perhaps merely millionaires. And as Buffett astutely observes, it’s not too late to tax them. At this point, a few Dear Readers may be saying to themselves, “Well, okay, but even if Buffett should have said something earlier, at least he said something now… and that means that he would start paying higher taxes now.

False.

Implementing a higher income tax would barely move the needle on Buffett’s annual tax bill, as the nearby chart illustrates. Buffett paid $6.9 million in taxes on his 2010 personal income of $39.9 million dollars — or 17.4%. But he paid zero personal taxes on his portion — $2.9 billion — of Berkshire Hathaway’s net income. (Of course Berkshire paid corporate tax, but that fact is not germane to the discussion of personal taxes that Buffett addressed in his article last year). In other words, even if you bumped the personal income tax all the way up to 100%, and literally confiscated every cent of Buffett’s direct personal income, the effective tax rate on the totality of his increased wealth in 2010 would have been only 1.4%!



Buffett’s “tax fairness” ideas — focusing as they do on personal income, dividends and capital gains taxes — would leave Buffett, himself, virtually unscathed. That’s because:

1) His personal income represents less than 2% of his annual wealth accumulation;

2) Berkshire Hathaway has never paid a dividend in its history;

3) Buffett, himself, has no intention of generating any capital gains because he has no intention of selling a single share of Berkshire Hathaway.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1718541-nebulous-world-european-agencies

The exact amount is 6,157 euros: that is what it costs to hold a meeting of the board of directors of EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority. And yes, this is the figure per head. We do not know how the 15 board members travelled to Parma [the location of EFSA’s headquarters] – they may have arrived there in litters carried by porters. Nor do we know what was on the menu – perhaps they tucked in to poached quails eggs while they looked over the agenda for the meeting.

However, thanks to the tireless efforts of Monica Macovei, a Romanian MEP who specialises in the fight against corruption, we can safely say that the board members have very unusual notions about the role they are supposed to play. In 2010 alone, EFSA spent 49 million euros on “communications and management” outsourcing.
How could such a level of dysfunction be possible?

This is not the only anomaly to be observed in the EU agencies, of which we now have 24. No doubt we should conclude that it was perfectly natural for the former chief of the European Medicines Agency in London, Thomas Lönngren, to take up a post in the pharmaceuticals industry at the beginning of this year. Ditto for Mella Frewen, who spent years working as a Brussels lobbyist for the American seed producer Monsanto, before becoming the Director General of the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU (CIAA), who is now about to be appointed to the EFSA.

Even NGOs appear to be unable to distinguish between what is and is not acceptable: to wit, a recent fact-finding mission to the Caribbean undertaken by the the boss of the Copenhagen based European Environment Agency an a number of her staff. The official goal of the trip organised by the NGO "Earth Watch" – but billed to the taxpayer to the tune of 2,000 per head – was to study biodiversity. That does not just look like an example of cross subsidization: it is one.

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1706951-scotland-oil-wind-and-whisky-galore

"It's Scotland's oil" is one of the most highly charged slogans in Scottish politics. First used by the Scottish National Party in 1974, the notion that Scotland "owns" up to 90% of the North Sea's reserves remains one of the strongest sources of grievance for nationalists.

And in the next two years, as Alex Salmond leads the country into a referendum on independence, it is likely to become one of the central arguments for nationalists: they believe it will help decide the fate of the UK.

Ever since it became clear that North Sea oil fields would generate immense riches, the SNP has insisted that that wealth has been squandered by successive governments at Westminster. They point out that Norway, a country with a similar population to Scotland at just under 5 million, has saved much of its oil income: surplus revenue is ploughed into the government pension fund, which is now Europe's largest owner of shares and is worth about 3.3 trillion kroner (€434bn).

The SNP argues that if you extend a line east from where the Scotland-England border hits the coast north of Berwick, the division of the seabed would give Scotland control over nearly all North Sea oil and gas fields.

3/30/12 Foxconn Labor Audit and Apple's Bottom Line
Bloomberg's Dominic Chu reports on the impact on Apple from an audit of Foxconn Technology Group that found “serious and pressing” violations of Chinese labor laws. He speaks on Bloomberg Television's "Inside Track."
appx 2 minute video

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/89296027/

3/30/12 Apple, Foxconn To Improve Factory Conditions
Apple and its China-based supplier Foxconn have agreed to limit worker overtime and significantly improve health and safety conditions at the plants that produce, among other products, the iPhone and iPad. The move comes after an investigation by the Fair Labor Association found Foxconn factories violate numerous Chinese work rules.

audio at link, appx 4.5 minutes

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/30/149668775/apple-foxconn-to-improve-factory-conditions

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_34206.shtml

The disturbances seen in Barcelona during the General Strike on Thursday left 74 arrests and half a million € worth of damage. 48 police were injured and another four people are in hospital, two of them seriously hurt as a consequence of the police charges and rioting.

It’s now known that four of the arrests are underage, and another eight are foreigners.

The Mossos d’Esquadra used tear gas for the first time in 16 years, and the Catalan Government spoke of ‘urban guerrillas’ with ‘criminal instinct’.

The Ministry for the Interior says it prioritise action against the rioters, and consider that some 300 regular rioters used the day for their own purposes. The warn about their better organisation and the increase in violence seen.

Read more: http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_34206.shtml#ixzz1qbw4badF

The Mossos d’Esquadra used tear gas for the first time in 16 years, and the Catalan Government spoke of ‘urban guerrillas’ with ‘criminal instinct’.

Four arrests were underage and the 8 foreigners. And I would be willing to bet that although the other were of age...they had a good portion of young adults that could not find a job. And I bet it was the same for the 'foreigners'. These urban guerrillas were probably like the OWS group. Their only criminal instinct is they want to work to have a future and life.

Last edited Fri Mar 30, 2012, 04:45 PM - Edit history (1)

(delinquents, basically, and/or agents provacateurs, unrepresentative of the political anarchist movement generally, much less the striking/demonstrating/protesting mainstream of the left - 'anti-system' they're called around here, 'anti-sisteme' in Catalan) are the same group that, through their acts of violence (that of course get widely published in the mainstream Spanish & international media, overshadowing the rest of the story) have a lot to answer for already due to the part they played in undermining the Spanish 'indignados' movement - precursor to both the Arab Spring and your OWS, but moribund here now.

Me, I'm back in Spain, in the mountains of the north of Catalonia. I entered yesterday, after a long fast drive down through mostly rural France, through a 'back door' on minor roads up in the hills - my preferred route, but also because the main highway frontier was blockaded by pickets and trucks were held up, blocking that road. Of this latter action I, of course, approve: solidarity with peaceful protesters and strikers. But there would have been no justification at all for any crazy violent types to have, for example, set fire to a truck (or injured a trucker). That would only have brought opprobium down on the heads of legitimate political actors and would have wiped out their message.

I hope you get the point, although I'm surely expressing myself badly, what with all the language changes I've been coping with recently.

People across the political spectrum in Spain are very very very worried about the near- and mid-term future. Civil upheaval, to say the least, is not to be ruled out. Everyone is very aware of all the corruption that has been behind what has been going on. The young see no way forward. But, one step at a time. There will be further industrial action, of that you can be sure.

The middle-class Brits, by contrast, are very smug, there on their little house-proud densely-populated island, and riding for a fall, perhaps.

In Greece, it is as I have mentioned. I have heard reports in the poorer provinces in Spain where it is young (high school) students protesting...thus my doubts about what the politicians say in Madrid. I am aware of the anarchists, but also do not want to paint legitimate protest as anarchist-which is what the authorities want to do in order to keep us in line and obedient.

I understand exactly what you are saying and am glad that you are back where it seems your heart wants to be. I am glad you arrived back safely and always look forward to hearing your reports.

I feel that most of what we are told these days is bull shit and it is only from local people such as yourself that we can get a real picture.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/03/30/inenglish/1333115032_221974.html


Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro Romero announces Spain's 2012 budget plans. / JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)

The Cabinet on Friday approved 27 billion euros of savings for the rest of the year, the biggest spending adjustment seen in Spain’s modern democracy.

Speaking after a meeting of the Cabinet, Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro described the country’s finances as “critical,” and reiterated that the government’s goal is to bring down the deficit by the end of the year from the current 8.51 percent of GDP to 5.3 percent, in line with Brussels’ demands.

“Spain will keep its good faith by ending the year with a solid deficit figure as we pledged [to Brussels],” Montoro said.

The government plans drastic spending cuts in all the ministries with an average reduction of 16.9 percent of spending – two percentage points higher than the figure Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced on Tuesday. The biggest cuts will be made in overseas aid through international cooperation and development programs, with 594 million euros of cuts.


*** good luck, spain -- you're gonna need it.

The revolution will begin in Spain. I feel it in my bones.

And who will be the one that shuts it down? Or tries to, prematurely.

Spain's general strike shows first signs of rebellion against austerity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/29/spain-general-strike-rebellion-austerity



With near-empty railway stations, shut factories, mass marches and occasional outbreaks of violence during a general strike on Thursday, Spaniards showed the first signs of rebellion against the reformist, austerity-preaching conservative government they voted in four months ago.

Police and pickets clashed in a handful of places, but it was a largely peaceful general strike in a country whose sinking economy, with 23% unemployment, has become the focus of worry about the future of the whole eurozone area.

Thousands of police officers remained on duty around the country on Thursday night as tens of thousands of flag-waving demonstrators flooded into city centres for protest marches against labour reform and austerity measures introduced by prime minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative People's party [PP].

Demonstrators brought the centres of Madrid, Barcelona and other cities to a standstill as trade unions claimed the strike was more widely supported than previous nationwide stoppages in 2010 and 2002. Rajoy's officials claimed, however, that the 2010 strike against a socialist government had received greater support.

"Que vuelva Franco a rescatar al pueblo" - Let Franco return to save the people.

The 'revolution', I fear, will be neo-fascist. (& see #40 above.)

And by that I mean the real thing, Mussolini-style.

It takes education from the cradle, and good genes, to overcome it.

http://www.nationofchange.org/bank-america-ceo-gets-75-million-pay-package-after-bank-lost-more-half-its-stock-value-1333113463

The Wall Street Journal noted this week that that CEO pay lagged behind profits and productivity last year, mirroring a trend that has been occurring with workers’ wages for decades. But even that slight modicum of moderation regarding executive compensation evidently didn’t extend to Bank of America, which gave CEO Brian Moynihan a $7.5 million pay package — six times as much as he made in 2010 — following a year in which the company’s stock plummeted:

Bank of America gave its CEO a pay package worth $7.5 million last year, six times as large as the year before. It happened while the company’s stock lost more than half its value and the bank lost its claim as the biggest in the country.

The package for CEO Brian Moynihan included a salary of $950,000, a $6.1 million stock award and about $420,000 worth of use of company aircraft and tax and financial advice.

For those keeping score, Bank of America’s stock dropped 58 percent in 2011 and the bank surrendered its title as the nation’s largest to JP Morgan Chase. A good chunk of the stock award was actually given to Moynihan for the bank’s 2010 performance, when it lost money.

If we aren't careful, this thread will get an XXX rating.

I was making money for agencies!
Damn..

The day before the Spanish General Strike, the Daily Mail reports that high class prostitutes in Madrid have stopped attending to bankers.

The paper reports they have taken the action against the financial sector and will not return to service the bankers until the banks ‘open the credit tap for families and companies’.

The paper claims that the bankers, now aware of the strategy, are pretending to be ‘architects or engineers’ to get their usual service.

The Mexican internet site SDPNoticias.com even claims that the Madrid bankers have called for the Government to mediate in the dispute. We think that unlikely.



http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_34183.shtml#ixzz1qcLRo2kv

Proving once again, even ladies of the evening has scruples.

For years lawyers and used car salesmen rated low on the most respected poll. I think bankers and WS exec's are about to take their place.

Factory workers, miners, teachers and others join general strike called by unions over labour reforms and austerity plans

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/VKY5JJ/ZGIMA3/T10SH/HY3HE1/R3MRO6/36/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=30

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_polite_conference_rooms_where_liberties_are_saved_and_lost_20120326/

I spent four hours in a third-floor conference room at 86 Chambers St. in Manhattan on Friday as I underwent a government deposition. Benjamin H. Torrance, an assistant U.S. attorney, carried out the questioning as part of the government’s effort to decide whether it will challenge my standing as a plaintiff in the lawsuit I have brought with others against President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta over the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), also known as the Homeland Battlefield Bill.

The NDAA implodes our most cherished constitutional protections. It permits the military to function on U.S. soil as a civilian law enforcement agency. It authorizes the executive branch to order the military to selectively suspend due process and habeas corpus for citizens. The law can be used to detain people deemed threats to national security, including dissidents whose rights were once protected under the First Amendment, and hold them until what is termed “the end of the hostilities.” Even the name itself—the Homeland Battlefield Bill—suggests the totalitarian concept that endless war has to be waged within “the homeland” against internal enemies as well as foreign enemies.

Judge Katherine B. Forrest, in a session starting at 9 a.m. Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, will determine if I have standing and if the case can go forward. The attorneys handling my case, Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer, will ask, if I am granted standing, for a temporary injunction against the Homeland Battlefield Bill. An injunction would, in effect, nullify the law and set into motion a fierce duel between two very unequal adversaries—on the one hand, the U.S. government and, on the other, myself, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, the Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir and three other activists and journalists. All have joined me as plaintiffs and begun to mobilize resistance to the law through groups such as Stop NDAA.

The deposition was, as these things go, conducted civilly. Afran and Mayer, the attorneys bringing the suit on my behalf, were present. I was asked detailed questions by Torrance about my interpretation of Section 1021 and Section 1022 of the NDAA. I was asked about my relationships and contacts with groups on the U.S. State Department terrorism list. I was asked about my specific conflicts with the U.S. government when I was a foreign correspondent, a period in which I reported from El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Middle East, the Balkans and other places. And I was asked how the NDAA law had impeded my work...

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http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2012/03/calling-demarcos-bluff-use-the-gses-market-power-to-force-2d-lien-write-downs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+creditslips%2Ffeed+%28Credit+Slips%29

There's been mounting pressure on the acting head of the FHFA, Ed DeMarco to order Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to undertake principal reductions. DeMarco's pushed back, arguing that it's not fair for the GSEs to write-down principal when there are second liens on some of the loans that are on banks' books and the banks aren't doing write-downs (see here and here and Felix's critique here). DeMarco is arguing for strict observance of absolute priority. He notes that reducing the GSEs' first lien balances at taxpayer expense effects a bailout of the banks as it bouys the likelihood that their second liens will be repaid.

DeMarco's correct about a write-down of the firsts alone being a bailout of the banks. But his argument for doing nothing doesn't hold up for two reasons. First, there are plenty of GSE loans without seconds. There's no reason not to do write-downs on those loans. And second, the GSEs have the market power to force the banks to write down seconds as a term of doing business with the GSEs. If DeMarco's serious about dealing with negative equity, he'll start running the GSEs' like the 800 lb. gorilla they are in the housing market.
Not all GSE loans have second liens. It's not hard to determine if there's a second lien on a property--a title search and/or a credit report will show that. Those aren't free, but I hate to think that would be what's keeping DeMarco from ordering the GSEs to write-down principal on loans that don't have seconds. The possibility that some might have seconds shouldn't get in the way of writing down principal on those that don't have seconds.

More importantly, DeMarco's hardly a helpless babe in this situation. DeMarco has the leverage to force the banks' hand on second liens. The GSEs have no obligation to do business with anyone they don't want to deal with, and the GSEs get to set the terms on which they do business. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that prevents DeMarco from instructing the GSEs to adopt a policy that they will not purchase mortgage loans from any financial institution that does not agree to abide by a second lien write-down policy. That could be a policy that says 2ds get written off completely if there is a principal reduction on the 1st, or one that makes for a pro rata reduction, etc. The precise terms aren't key.

What is key is that the GSEs have the power to force these terms on the banks....MORE

Make sure you go to the end!!!

Bob Hill and his new wife Betty were vacationing in Europe.....
as it happens, near Transylvania. They were driving in a rental car along a
rather deserted highway. It was late and raining very hard. Bob could
barely see the road in front of the car. Suddenly, the car skids out of
control! Bob attempts to control the car, but to no avail!

The car swerves and smashes into a tree.

Moments later, Bob shakes his head to clear the fog. Dazed, he looks
over at the passenger seat and sees his wife unconscious, with her head
bleeding! Despite the rain and unfamiliar countryside, Bob knows he has to
get her medical assistance.

Bob carefully picks his wife up and begins trudging down the road.

After a short while, he sees a light. He heads towards the light, which is
coming from a large, old house. He approaches the door and knocks.
A minute passes. A small, hunched man opens the door. Bob immediately
blurts, "Hello, my name is Bob Hill, and this is my wife Betty. We've
been in a terrible accident, and my wife has been seriously hurt..
Can I please use your phone?"

"I'm sorry," replied the hunchback, "but we don't have a phone.
My master is a doctor; come in, and I will get him!"

Bob brings his wife in. An older man comes down the stairs.

"I'm afraid my assistant may have misled you. I am not a medical doctor; I am a scientist.. However, it is many miles to the nearest clinic, and I have had a basic medical training. I will see what I can do. Igor, bring them down to the laboratory."

With that, Igor picks up Betty and carries her downstairs,with Bob
following closely... Igor places Betty on a table in the lab. Bob
collapses from exhaustion and his own injuries, so Igor places Bob on an
adjoining table.

After a brief examination, Igor's master looks worried. "Things are
serious, Igor. Prepare a transfusion." Igor and his master work
feverishly, but to no avail. Bob and Betty Hill are no more.

The Hills' deaths upset Igor's master greatly. Wearily, he climbs the
steps to his conservatory, which houses his grand piano. For it is here
that he has always found solace. He begins to play, and a stirring,
almost haunting melody fills the house..

Meanwhile, Igor is still in the lab tidying up. His eyes catch movement,
and he notices the fingers on Betty's hand twitch, keeping time to the
haunting piano music. Stunned, he watches as Bob's arm begins to rise,
marking the beat! He is further amazed as Betty and Bob both sit up
straight!

Unable to contain himself, he dashes up the stairs to the conservatory.

He bursts in and shouts to his master:
"Master, Master!.....
The Hills are alive with the sound of music!"

(I am soooooo sorry.....but you really should've seen that one coming!!)
You might even consider changing your e-mail address now!
What did you expect?...it's free from a demented old friend on the
Internet?

But I kept waiting for the shaggy dog

by which you know it is a successful shaggy dog story.

European finance ministers were warned on Friday that the underlying causes of the continent’s debt and banking crisis had yet to be resolved, as Spain, struggling to rein in its fiscal deficit, published its most austere budget since democracy returned after the Franco era
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