Goldman CEO sees pay double in 2010

Hasn't everyone else also seen a pay raise like this? By gosh, he's such a leader and deserves every penny for managing to drive earnings down even after free money handed out by the taxpayers who are funding the bank recovery. Who says capitalism is dead in America? Good work, when you can get it.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) awarded Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein $19 million in compensation for 2010, almost double the prior year, and granted him the first cash bonus in three years.

The total includes $5.4 million in cash, $12.6 million in restricted stock, a $600,000 salary and about $464,000 in other benefits, the New York-based firm’s proxy statement showed. Blankfein’s $9.8 million pay for 2009 included $9 million in restricted stock plus salary and other compensation.

Goldman Sachs, the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, boosted Blankfein’s compensation for a year in which earnings dropped 38 percent and the stock price was little changed. The amount falls in the middle ground between 2008, when Blankfein, 56, and six other senior officers got no bonuses, and the record-setting $67.9 million award he received for 2007.

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Do Republicans want Americans to die in airline crashes?

Call me crazy but I would rather have a rested pilot instead of a tired one. Maybe there's a grass roots movement screaming for less airline safety but then again, maybe it's the same old corporate boot-licking by the GOP. Bloomberg

:A U.S. rule to require more rest for airline pilots may stall under a proposal adopted by the House, according to cockpit crews, lawmakers and other plan opponents.

The 215-209 vote today in Washington requires that the Federal Aviation Administration, before issuing any rules, consider alternatives, differing industry segments and adverse effects on the economy. The provision was added to legislation that will fund the FAA for four years, which the House also approved, 223-196.

The proposal will ensure rules “are not overly burdensome” and “based on the best available science,” Representative Bill Shuster, the Pennsylvania Republican who wrote the plan, said yesterday on the House floor.

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Sarah Palin endorses hard-right Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate David Prosser

Well, that makes it official. David Prosser is the "Sarah Palin candidate" for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Politico:

Sarah Palin endorses conservative Wisconsin Judge

Capitalizing on the rare buzz around a state Supreme Court race, Sarah Palin has endorsed an incumbent conservative justice in Wisconsin.

Did you catch that? Conservative Wisconsin judge. David Prosser, the guy with the injudicial temper. Who promises to deliver on the bench for Governor Walker and the Republican legislature. That David Prosser. Remember: this is a ten-year seat on the bench.

If you're eligible to vote in Wisconsin:

▪ Volunteer for JoAnne Kloppenberg; she needs a get-out-the-vote effort for this coming Tuesday. (Yes, this coming Tuesday is election day.)

▪ Organize your friends to vote on April 5.

▪ Vote on April 5.

As they say about the lottery, you can't win if you don't play. (And while you're at it, consider adding to our campaign to raise money to recall the Wisconsin Republican 8. Just click the link on the right; thanks. Good news — the first set of petitions has already gone in. Seven to go.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

Robert Reich: We're heading toward a double-dip recession

From Alternet via DFA Anne Arundel (my emphasis):

Why aren’t Americans being told the truth about the economy? We’re heading in the direction of a double dip – but you’d never know it if you listened to the upbeat messages coming out of Wall Street and Washington.

Consumers are 70 percent of the American economy, and consumer confidence is plummeting. It’s weaker today on average than at the lowest point of the Great Recession.

The Reuters/University of Michigan survey shows a 10 point decline in March – the tenth largest drop on record. Part of that drop is attributable to rising fuel and food prices. A separate Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence, just released, shows consumer confidence at a five-month low — and a large part is due to expectations of fewer jobs and lower wages in the months ahead.

Pessimistic consumers buy less. And fewer sales spells economic trouble ahead.

Reich goes on to talk about the job numbers and notes that 200,000 jobs is "peanuts" compared to what's needed:

[T]he nation has lost so many jobs over the last three years that even at a rate of 200,000 a month we wouldn’t get back to 6 percent unemployment until 2016.

There's other data in the article, including comparisons to GDP growth during the mid-1930s. I recommend reading it all.

But let's look at his opening question: Why aren't Americans being told the truth? Reich's answer — Dems want happy voters, and Repubs want voters who don't think they need government to help out. That plus the DOW, which is above the magical 10,000 number most people measure the economy by.

Except that this time, a DOW of 12,000 isn't enough to boost confidence. And the reason is certainly the mound of consumer debt people feel dangerously saddled with. Consumer debt, not wage growth, fueled (1) the Reagan "boom"; (2) most (but not all) of the Clinton boom; and (3) allowed the economy to tread water (i.e., not tank) through most of the Bush years.

Those days are gone for good, in my estimation. 2008 was a wake-up year for consumers, and I don't think all the wide-screen bargains and happy talk in the world can lull them back to sleep.

My advice, added to that of many: Pay off your debt if you can; reduce your expenses if you can; build up cash, if you can. The Bigs are screaming "hyper-inflation" to create the next pro-Billionaire flash-mob of spending cutters.

Don't be fooled. Deflation is more likely, and in a deflation, cash wins. (There's a primer in this post on the dangers and opportunities posed by deflation.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

More protests in Syria lead to more deaths

Could anyone see this coming ten years ago or even one year ago? Al Jazeera:

Protest marches against Baath Party rule broke out in cities in the north and south after Friday prayers, including in the flashpoint city of Daraa.

Hundreds of people took to the streets in and around the capital, Damascus, in the afternoon as security forces and ruling party loyalists attacked protesters with batons in Rifaii mosque in the city.

Syrian forces reportedly fired tear gas at protesters in the suburb of Douma, and in the coastal cities of Latakia and Banias.

Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Damascus, said at least four people were killed in the afternoon after government forces started using live fire against protesters in Douma.

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New leak found in Fukushima reactor

As you might guess, they say it's not much of a problem that the radioactive water is leaking into the sea. Hmmmm.

The water was seeping Saturday from a newly discovered crack in a maintenance pit on the edge of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear site into the Pacific Ocean, Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.

Measurements show the air right above it contained 1,000 millisieverts of radioactivity. Exposure to 500 millisieverts over a short period of time can increase the long-term risk of cancer. But experts say radiation is quickly diluted by the vast Pacific and that even large amounts have little effect.

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Stevie Ray Vaughan - Pride and Joy

More spring weather today over here following a soggy week. The rain is back tomorrow so today is the day to get out and about. Read the rest of this post...

Gaddafi reaches out to West for exit

Gaddafi is someone who can never be trusted but at the same time, who wants this war to continue besides the military industrial complex who loves the profit margins? The Guardian:

However, signs that the regime was looking to reach out to the west came after the Guardian reported that a meeting had taken place between Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to Gaddafi's influential son Saif al-Islam, and British officials on Wednesday in London. Ismail is a fixer who has been used by the Gaddafi family to negotiate arms deals and has considerable contacts in the west.

Ismail and Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain on Wednesday night, are not the only current and former supporters of the regime to have been in contact with Britain.

British officials have been in contact with a number of Libyan officials in recent weeks in behind-the-scenes diplomacy, according to a spokesman for David Cameron. He stressed that Britain had not been negotiating any possible trade-offs aimed at sealing Gaddafi's exit from power. "There are no deals."

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Jamie Dimon slams regulation at Chamber of Commerce event

There's no two ways around it. Both Dimon and the Chamber are dangerous and they're destroying America. Now Dimon is saying that new regulation will be the "the nail in our coffin for big American banks." The only "nail" is the one that bankers like Dimon drove through the heart of America when they trashed the economy and sent millions to the unemployment line. Maybe Dimon wants a little refresher on the destruction that his industry left behind? You know, trillions spent saving them, high unemployment, millions of lost homes, credit ruined for individuals (not so much for the banks) and Fed policies that still is punish savers so that the bankers can get their books back in good shape.

Wasn't it enough to crush everyone else's hopes and dreams as the economy crumbled? No, the bankers like Dimon still want more. They won't be happy until they get paid even more and the entire damned country is bankrupt. Keep speaking to the Chamber of Commerce since they also want to see the demise of America. They never know when enough is enough. Financial Times:

Regulators are negotiating international capital standards for the biggest banks but the chief executive of JP Morgan Chase said setting the new requirements too high, or allowing overseas banks to calculate their asset base differently, could disadvantage US banks and was already stifling economic growth.

“If you want to set it so high that no big bank ever goes bankrupt... I think that would greatly diminish growth,” he told a US Chamber of Commerce conference.

If only we could be so lucky. Let the banks go someone else and ruin an economy. Read the rest of this post...