Banks investigating new ways to bleed customers with fees

There's little chance the new Congress will care after cashing in on banking money. How many more times will the middle class be asked to prop up the banking industry? Without high stakes gambling or scam-like fees, the financial industry will have to settle for more down to earth salaries and profits. The problem is, they're convinced that they are geniuses and of course, much smarter than everyone else. Their everlasting sense of entitlement won't end until someone finally calls them out but with the weaklings and boot lickers in Washington, don't hold your breath. WSJ:

To counter that lost revenue, banks are thinking about imposing annual fees of $25 or $30 on debit cards, according to people familiar with bank strategies. Some also considering limiting the number of debit-card transactions that a customer can make each month, these people said. Another idea circulating in the industry: Limiting the size of a purchase that a customer could make with a debit card. At the same time, reward programs for debit cards are likely to get the ax, these people say.

New debit-card fees are "definitely a 2011 issue," says Robert Hammer, who runs a banking-industry consulting firm in Thousand Oaks, Calif. "The question is which quarter it will be and which bank will go first."

New proposals from the Federal Reserve call for limiting how much banks can charge merchants for debit-card transactions. The proposals, released last month, are part of the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul bill that was enacted last year. The Fed has proposed capping debit-card merchant fees, known as interchange, at seven to 12 cents a transaction. That represents a drop of as much as 84% from the current average rate of 44 cents.

At this point, who would want to keep their money with any of these banks? Unless you are super wealth, there's too little benefit to staying with any of the big banks. Even for the wealth, the big banks hardly care about their customers as we saw during the crisis. They were often the ones duped into purchasing the mortgage garbage that all imploded. Read the rest of this post...

Boehner can't name one program he'd cut

Via ThinkProgress:

WILLIAMS: Name a program right now that we could do without.

BOEHNER: I don’t think I have one off the top of my head.

Perhaps a little less time at the tanning salon.

HuffPost Hill notes what comes later on in the same interview:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: When you go home next, is there a sidewalk, a place, a person that's kind of a talisman to grab onto? Again, talkin' about strength and the new job?

JOHN BOEHNER: Well, I get strength every day just uh, going to my Facebook site.

For a guy who cries a lot, there doesn't seem to be a heck of a lot going on upstairs. Read the rest of this post...

House Republicans already violating the Constitution

As I wrote yesterday, the Republican party likes to make a show of its love of the Constitution, but when it comes to time to actually implement the Constitution, the GOP likes to go its own way. From Ryan Grim at Huff Post:

Two House Republicans have cast votes as members of the 112th Congress, but were not sworn in on Wednesday, a violation of the Constitution on the same day that the GOP had the document read from the podium. The Republicans, incumbent Pete Sessions of Texas and freshman Mike Fitzpatrick, missed the swearing in, but watched it on television from the Capitol Visitors Center.

"That wasn't planned. It just worked out that way," said Fitzpatrick at the time, according to local press on hand, which noted that he "happened to be introducing Texas Congressman Pete Sessions while glad-handing his supporters in the Capitol Visitor Center that he secured for them when the House swearing in began."

There is no provision in the Constitution for a remote swearing-in by television. On Thursday, the Rules Committee adjourned because Sessions had introduced legislation to repeal health care reform - an action that can only be taken by an official member of Congress.

Read the rest of this post...

Sorry Boehner, you don't get to overrule CBO

It's really quite egregious what the Republicans in the House are trying to do, now in their second day of running the US House. The Republicans are trying to make it so that CBO is no longer the arbiter of how much legislation costs, and whether it adds or subtracts from the deficit.

For those who don't know, the Congressional Budget Office is an independent agency of the Congress. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans run it. It is completely independent. But the Republicans are unhappy that CBO has concluded, repeatedly, that last year's health care reform legislation will save over $100bn over the next ten years, and they're even more unhappy that CBO has just upped its numbers to $230bn for the cost of repealing HCR over the next ten years.

So, when they're confronted with incontrovertible facts, the Republicans attack the source, and lie.

Every single journalist working in Washington, DC knows about CBO. They know CBO is independent, and that CBO is what we use to "score" legislation, period. The Republicans can not be permitted to get away with removing CBO as the final arbiter of how much legislation costs. The damage to decision-making in Washington would be tremendous. The Republicans in the House literally issued their own analysis today of what they think health care reform will cost. And nobody cares. It's irrelevant what the Republicans in the House, or frankly the White House, "thinks" health care reform will save us. What matters is what independent impartial arbiters say, and that's CBO.

This is part of the larger GOP strategy to undermine any authority that contradicts their worldview - contradicts their lies. It's why the Republicans have been denigrating the mainstream media for two decades (at least). And it's why they're now suggesting we all ignore CBO. They cannot be allowed to get away with this, as ABC News's The Note did in a recent story in which they quoted the Republicans' analysis as to why CBO is wrong, but didn't get anyone from CBO to explain why they're right.

Stop playing he-said she-said, ABC (and all the rest of you in the media). And start doing your job. If you know one guy is lying, then report that fact. Your job isn't to take lies and give them the patina of truth. That's not fair and balanced, it's FOX. Read the rest of this post...

Blue Shield of California to raise rates up to 59% on individuals this year

Somehow has to pay for the executive salaries and bonuses that have been increasing during the recession. It simply wouldn't be fair to see executives make less during the worst economic period in decades. LA Times:

Another big California health insurer has stunned individual policyholders with huge rate increases — this time it's Blue Shield of California seeking cumulative hikes of as much as 59% for tens of thousands of customers March 1.

Blue Shield's action comes less than a year after Anthem Blue Cross tried and failed to raise rates as much as 39% for about 700,000 California customers.

San Francisco-based Blue Shield said the increases were the result of fast-rising healthcare costs and other expenses resulting from new healthcare laws.

If they get away with this, there is a major problem that won't be solved until the public option is available. If these insurers really cared about the free market (and we know they don't - they hate it) they would embrace the public option competition. Big Business prefers the Soviet-style system that the GOP introduced which squashes competition. Read the rest of this post...

The Daley Grind: Obama picks Wm. Daley as new Chief of Staff

Happy New Year. I was down south visiting the 'rents for the holidays, and because I was traveling with a friend who couldn't fly (recovering from a collapsed lung), we drove. Quickly.

It took 16 hours from South Florida back up to DC, and I spent 13 of those hours listening to Matt Taibbi's "Griftopia." It should be required reading - not only for the population at large but for members of Congress and the Administration - all the way up to the President himself. Here's why:

Even if you disagree with some of Matt's conclusions (and I have one small bone to pick, but that's health care reform-related and best saved for another time), he hits the nail on the head when it comes to describing just how screwed up we are as a nation. Money runs our government. Even the smallest morsel of power corrupts absolutely. And while we are already more than halfway down the spiral waterslide that will dump us head first into complete economic and moral ruin, no one at the top is even thinking about how to make it stop.

Case in point. President Obama just picked William Daley as his new Chief of Staff. Former Commerce Secretary William Daley. Current Executive Board member of JP Morgan Chase William Daley. Brother of Chicago mayor Richard Daley. That William Daley.

And here is why this sucks.

1. Recycling the same old players is exactly what the American people voted against when they bought into Obama's rhetoric about changing Washington.

2. As we continue to get crushed by soaring unemployment and seemingly endless home foreclosures and still escalating health care costs, Wall Street's doing just fine. NYT:

In terms of overall profit, Wall Street is on track for one of its best years ever, although it will trail 2009, which was pumped up by federal bailout money and the rebound from the financial crisis.

In the first three quarters of the year, Wall Street earned $21.4 billion, putting it on track to easily outpace 2006, when the economy was booming, and well ahead of the New York City government’s initial estimate of $20.6 billion for profit in all of 2010.

This year, Wall Street’s five biggest firms have put aside nearly $90 billion for bonuses.

Even if only for perception's sake, is putting a Wall Street executive in charge of your Administration the right move? Does it send a message to the people that you care about them? I would argue it sends the exact opposite sentiment. It says to me that the White House cares more about the business community than anyone.

3. In today's write about Daley, the AP reports:

Daley laid out his political ideology last year upon joining the board of Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank.

"We must acknowledge that the left's agenda has not won the support of a majority of Americans — and, based on that recognition, we must steer a more moderate course," he said at the time.

The left's agenda? A more moderate course? Repealing DADT polled consistently above 70%. The public option was always more popular than the Senate health care plan which was a centrist compromise (or sell-out depending on whom you ask).

I, for one, elected a Democrat. If the incoming Chief of Staff even uses a term like "the left's agenda," how can any of us feel good about what's to come? Can you imagine a Republican Chief of Staff ever using the words "the right's agenda?" I can't. The right knows the power of its base.

I don't know enough about William Daley at this point to assess much more than what I've heard and read recently, but there is this one additional gem that just sweetens the deal. Taibbi writes in "Griftopia" that Daley's brother, Mayor Richard Daley, proudly sold off part of his city to close a short-term budget gap. It now costs $5/hour to park in part of downtown Chicago because Daley - with the help of the fine greedy folks at Morgan Stanley - relinquished control of Chicago's parking meters for the next 75 years. Matt writes:

So basically Morgan Stanley found a bunch of investors, including themselves, to put up over a billion dollars in December 2008; a big chunk of those investors then bailed out to make way in February 2009 for this Deeside Investments, which was 49.9 percent owned by Abu Dhabi and 50.1 percent owned by a company called Redoma SARL, about which nothing was known except that it had an address in Luxembourg.

He continues:

But the most obnoxious part of the deal is that the city is now forced to cede control of their streets to a virtually unaccountable private and at least partially foreign-owned company. Written into the original deal were drastic price increases. In Hairston's and Colon's neighborhoods, meter rates went from 25¢ an hour to $1.00 an hour the first year, and to $1.20 an hour the year after that. And again, the city has no power to close streets, remove or move meters, or really do anything without asking the permission of Chicago Parking Meters LLC.

Even if William has nothing at all to do with his brother's asinine scheme, did no one in the PR shop consider this connection might seem problematic? You may think I'm taking a giant leap on this one, but after listening to "Griftopia" and hearing Daley's name mentioned as the possible Chief of Staff pick on NPR just an hour later, I easily put two and two together. I can't be the only one.

It may be a new year, but it sure feels like we're in for another two years of the same old same old. Read the rest of this post...

Birther screams out as Congress reads the Constitution

Predictable and disgusting, but that's the monster the GOP created.

House Republicans' reading of the Constitution was interrupted Thursday by a woman who shouted "except Obama, except Obama" to the venerable document's words on a U.S. citizen's eligibility to be president.

Just as Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., was reading "no person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States" is eligible for the presidency, a woman in the visitor's gallery yelled out that it did not apply to President Barack Obama.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who was presiding over the House, banged the gavel and halted the proceedings, warning that such action from members of the public was a violation of House rules. The woman was quickly removed by Capitol police.

Read the rest of this post...

Report: 1400 more troops headed to Afghanistan

Wait, aren't we supposed to be getting out of there?

The United States plans to send 1,400 additional Marines to Afghanistan to boost its combat forces ahead of the spring fighting season, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The United States, which led a 2001 invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban, has about 100,000 troops in the country, and President Barack Obama is under pressure to show results so he can begin a promised withdrawal this year.

"The Marine battalion could start arriving on the ground as early as mid-January. The forces would mostly be deployed in the south, around Kandahar, where the U.S. has concentrated troops over the past several months." the paper said. It cited unnamed officials.

Read the rest of this post...

Teabaggers already disgusted with GOP broken promises

Uh, told ya so.

“I actually don’t think it would be possible to fall from grace any faster than this,” Mark Meckler, with the Tea Party Patriots, told The Daily Caller.

A few House Republican aides admitted to TheDC that the party had slipped up in failing to correct the $100 billion figure – first thrown out in the “Pledge to America” document released in late September – before this week.

Other Republican staffers ignored questions about the error. A few argued the same thing as Ryan and other lawmakers: the $100 billion in cuts was an accurate number when the GOP first issued their pledge in September.

The Republicans are now arguing that they didn't really lie about the $100bn figure. But because the fiscal year already started this past October 1, they can't cut $100bn this year, since they've already missed three months (in fact, they lie in the story above and claim that half the fiscal year is already gone - it's not, half the fiscal year is over at the end of March 2011). But there's another beautiful lie buried in the story - why can't the Republicans cut $100bn as promised simply because we're three months into the fiscal year? And just as importantly, are we to believe that the Republicans only figured out now that the fiscal year started this past October? Everyone in Washington knows that. So they lied, intentionally, when they told their followers that they'd cut $100bn. There's no other explanation for them now claiming "gosh, we made that promise before we realized the fiscal year started in October."

They knew. They lied. Welcome to the guys you just put in charge of the House. Same corrupt guys we kicked out four years ago. Read the rest of this post...

Stop the lies

Why is it that there's so much venom towards the state union workers yet Wall Street still gets an easy ride? It doesn't say much about society when we continue to pick on the weakest and allow the strongest to dominate. Notice how the extremists such as Christie bash the unions but somehow never asks the wealthy Wall Street types to sacrifice as well. Again, if the unions and middle class workers were the problem, how does one explain the enormous $25 billion problem in Texas? Read the rest of this post...

After one day of GOP control of House, AP spotlights the already broken promises

We might expect the headline, "PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate," and this first line from any of the progressive blogs that are tracking the GOP's already broken promises. But, this is from the Associated Press:

Republicans have already violated some of the vows they made in taking stewardship of the House.

Their pledge to cut $100 billion from the budget in one year won't be kept.

And for a coming vote seeking to repeal the health care overhaul, the first major initiative of the new Congress, lawmakers won't be allowed to propose changes to the legislation despite Republican promises to end such heavy-handed tactics from the days of Democratic control.

There's been a lot of chest-thumping from GOPers about how they're going to change DC. Heard it. House Republicans are beholden to corporate lobbyists. And, those corporate lobbyists will run the House. Hint: They're not going to be looking out for average Americans.

My prediction is that when the Republicans punt on their fiscal promises, they'll appeal to their base by going after social issues. Read the rest of this post...

BP's oil spill was 'avoidable' and happened because of cost cutting

And we all know how tough it has been for the oil industry to make any money. Just because it's the most profitable industry ever doesn't mean the oil execs don't think it could be even more profitable. Nice job, Washington, for letting these revolting punks get away with this over the years. As with other abuses in the corporate world, they do it because they know they can get away with it. What next?

Many of the poor decisions taken on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig before the fatal blow-out on 20 April were taken to save time and money.

"Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time (and money)," the report said.

In a separate chart, it identified nine decisions that increased risk; seven of these saved the companies time. BP was involved in all nine decisions.

BP, which owned the well, did not enforce the proper controls to manage those increased risks, the report said. "BP did not have adequate controls in place to ensure that key decisions in the months leading up to the blow-out were safe or sound from an engineering perspective."

Read the rest of this post...

White House creating 'insider threat' programs to prevent new WikiLeaks

And funny enough, the internal memo was already leaked. Kidding aside, who really thinks that it makes sense for so many people to have such broad access to what they consider critical information? That said, the information being published by WikiLeaks is of a lower security level than what the NY Times has detailed though somehow the rules are different for WikiLeaks.

The move is designed to prevent further embarrassing disclosures of the sort which have dominated the news in recent months. Unfortunately, just 48 hours after the memo was sent, a copy was leaked to staff at NBC news, who duly posted it on their website.

"Do you have an insider threat programme or the foundation for such a programme?" it asks department heads, adding that they should keep a close eye on the "relative happiness" of workers, because a staffer who displays "despondence and grumpiness" is likely to be untrustworthy.

In a passage which recalls a level of paranoia last seen during the Cold War, it asks whether agencies are using lie-detector tests or are trying to identify "unusually high occurrences of foreign travel, contacts, or foreign preference" by members of their staff.

Read the rest of this post...

UN warns on record high food prices around the world

There is no single reason for the rise but rather, many contributing factors such as population growth, weather and of course, traders making a short term buck. The Independent:

Food riots, geopolitical tensions, global inflation and increasing hunger among the planet's poorest people are the likely effects of a new surge in world food prices, which have hit an all-time high according to the United Nations.

The UN's index of food prices – an international basket comprising wheat, corn, dairy produce, meat and sugar – stands at its highest since the index started in 1990, surpassing even the peaks seen during the 2008 food crisis, which prompted civil disturbances from Mexico to Indonesia.

"We are entering danger territory," said the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's chief economist, Abdolreza Abbassian.

Read the rest of this post...