Former NYSE director: Goldman has no reason to make apologies to anyone

What about the taxpayers who bailed them out? Or do they not count because they're just the "little people" in their mind? Let's run through this once more since obnoxious asses like Kenneth Langone someone missed a few accounting issues. Besides the direct TARP money, Goldman also benefited from billions of TARP money that went to AIG to cover their bad deals. And then there was the trillions of dollars of Fed lending that went to Goldman and others on Wall Street who were struggling. Today, the QE2 buying is also all about propping up Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. There's no other reason why the Federal Reserve would throw money their way since they could easily cut out the middleman.

They're not geniuses with managing risk at Goldman. They're geniuses at owning Washington. People like Langone are why Americans outside of Wall Street hate Wall Street. Langone and his type are all about selling the big lie.

Although Goldman Sachs is completing a report that will shed light on the financial firm's business standards and ethics, Kenneth Langone, a venture capitalist and investment banker of more than 30 years, says the firm doesn't have anything to worry about.

"I think Goldman doesn't need to make apologies," said Langone, who's been both a client and competitor of the financial giant. "When you're their client, they do their very best and when you're their competitor, they also do their very best."

Langone, who was once a director of the New York Stock Exchange, dismissed criticism that under CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman shifted its focus from banking to more of a trading culture. All of the firms on Wall Street did that, he said, only Goldman was better able to manage their risks.

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Flashback: Sam Seder on the 'War on Christmas' (2005)

Do watch until the end, when far-right freak Bob Knight, who has worked for the hate group "Family Research Council," brings up the Nazis against Sam Seder, who is Jewish.

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The day the gnocchi exploded (Video)

I laughed so hard I cried.


(H/t HuffPost Hill) Read the rest of this post...

Steel on Wheels

Dylan Ratigan's effort to build a "jobs movement." Read the rest of this post...

House passed standalone DADT bill, 250 - 175. Over to the Senate again.

Big news.

The House just passed the DADT bill by a 250 - 175 margin. Fifteen Republicans voted yes while fifteen Democrats voted no. Nine (5Ds/4Rs) didn't vote. Barney Frank announced the vote.

This shows real progress. On May 27th, the DADT amendment passed by a margin of 234 - 194. Back then, only five GOPers voted yes and 26 Democrats voted no with 10 not voting. We picked up ten GOP votes.

Watching the debate, it was pretty obvious that no matter how they couched it, opposition to the repeal of DADT is based on pure homophobia. There's nothing else.

The Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, made strong floor speeches on behalf of repeal. We heard from a number of repeal supporters. One of the best lines was from Rep. Al Green (D-TX) who said, "I will not ask people who are willing to die for my country to live a lie for my country."

We did not hear from the GOP leaders, soon-to-be Speaker Boehner or soon-to-be Majority Leader Cantor. But, the GOP caucus was well-represented by haters. Hard to tell who is the worst, but Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) is certainly in the running for the House's biggest homophobe. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) also seemed particularly obsessed with the gay issue. He even invoked the YMCA. Seriously.

Now, it's back to the Senate. The pressure is on. The Majority Leader needs to get this bill to the Senate floor ASAP. Susan Collins and her GOP colleagues, Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski, Richard Lugar and now Olympia Snowe (see this post) need to do more than say they support repeal, they need to actually VOTE for repeal.

And, the President needs to use his bully pulpit. By a huge majority, the American people are on his side. Ending DADT is NOT controversial.

We've got momentum. Now, get this done. Read the rest of this post...

Reid to Senate Republicans: Stop whining about working up to Christmas

About time. The Republicans want to filibuster everything, then make them stay there until Christmas eve.

From the Senate floor moments ago -------

IN JUST A FEW MINUTES WE'RE GOING

TO PROCEED TO THE START TREATY. I'M TOLD THE REPUBLICANS ARE

GOING TO MAKE US READ THE ENTIRE TREATY IN AN EFFORT TO STALL

US FROM PASSING IT. ISN'T THAT WONDERFUL?

THAT PIECE OF -- THAT TREATY HAS BEEN HERE SINCE APRIL OR MAY

OF THIS YEAR. PLENTY OF TIME TO READ IT. THESE ARE ADDITIONAL

DAYS OF WASTED TIME WE COULD BE USING TO PASS LEGISLATION TO

GET HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. YET SOME OF MY REPUBLICAN COLLEAGUES

HAVE THE NERVE TO WHINE ABOUT HAVING TO STAY AND ACTUALLY DO

THE WORK OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. WE MAKE LARGE SALARIES, MADAM

PRESIDENT. WE COULD WORK AS MOST AMERICANS DO DURING THE

HOLIDAYS. PERHAPS SENATORS KYL AND DeMINT HAVE BEEN IN

WASHINGTON TOO LONG BECAUSE IN MY STATE, NEVADANS EMPLOYED IN

CASINOS AND HOTELS AND THROUGHOUT THE STATE OF NEVADA AND ON

RANCHES, BASICALLY EVERY PLACE HAVE TO WORK HARD ON HOLIDAYS,

INCLUDING CHRISTMAS, TO SUPPORT THEIR FAMILIES. THE MINES DON'T

SHUT DOWN IN NEVADA ON CHRISTMAS. PEOPLE WORK. THEY GET PAID

DOUBLE TIME A LOT OF TIMES WHEN THEY HAVE GOOD CONTRACTS, BUT

THEY WORK ON CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. MOST PEOPLE DON'T GET TWO

WEEKS OFF ON ANY TIME, LET ALONE CHRISTMAS WEEK. AND THESE

PEOPLE WHO ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE A JOB IN THESE TRYING TIMES

NEED TO WORK EXTRA HOURS TO MAKE ENDS MEET. SO IT'S OFFENSIVE

TO ME AND MILLIONS OF WORKING AMERICANS ACROSS THIS COUNTRY FOR

ANY SENATOR TO SUGGEST THAT WORKING THROUGH THE CHRISTMAS

HOLIDAYS IS SOMEHOW SACRILEGIOUS. THEY DECIDE TO WORK WITH US, WE CAN ALL HAVE A

HAPPY HOLIDAY. IF THEY DON'T, WE'RE GOING TO CONTINUE UNTIL WE

FINISH THE PEOPLE'S BUSINESS. MADAM PRESIDENT, I MOVE TO

PROCEED TO EXECUTIVE SESSION TO CALENDAR NUMBER 7, THE START

TREATY. I ASK FOR THE YEAS AND NAYS.

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Goldman Sachs executives to receive $111 million in bonuses for 2007 and 2009

Who owns you, Washington?

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and his top deputies will collect about $111.3 million in stock next month in a delayed payoff from last year and their record-setting 2007 bonuses.

Blankfein, 56, is poised to receive about $24.3 million in January, based on yesterday’s share price, while President Gary D. Cohn, 50, will get about $24 million, company filings show. The payouts, just a portion of the $67.9 million bonus awarded to Blankfein for 2007 and the $66.9 million paid to Cohn, reflect a 24 percent decline in the stock’s value since it was granted at $218.86.

Within a year after the bonuses were approved, Goldman Sachs took $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury, converted to a bank and was borrowing as much as $35.4 billion a day from Federal Reserve emergency programs. This year the firm paid $550 million to settle U.S. regulators’ fraud charges related to a mortgage-security the company sold in 2007.

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Tax cut bill passes Senate

This was expected. Read the rest of this post...

The next Irish Troubles?

The last Irish Troubles were good for no one. The next Irish Troubles may be good for everyone except the bankers and the European elite.

In short, it appears the resistance is moving to Europe.


First the French struck against Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age in France. Sarkozy defiantly passed the plan anyway, and is now facing serious challenge from left politicians, including the highly popular Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and his last-election rival, Ségolène Royal.

(A side note: Those French demonstrations were universally reported as "riots" in the U.S. press. I can personally state they were not riots. It's as though the U.S. press were saying with one voice, "Don't be like those French, Mr. & Ms. Worker. Surrender peacefully or you'll look bad.")

Next U.K. students staged rolling reactions to the Conservative plan to drastically increase tuitions. Critics of the move (including those in the streets) say its effects will include lessened social mobility and a heavily debt-encumbered working population. (Sound familiar? Thank you, Ron.)

Now Ireland is ripe, more than ripe in fact, with a cause that is much more direct. The problem is not an economic attack on the elderly (France, U.S.) or a cultural attack on the working class (U.K.). It's a direct drain of the national treasury by ... bankers. How much more clean can the narrative be?

Paul Krugman gave us the story in a column just two weeks old. Krugman:

The Irish story began with a genuine economic miracle. But eventually this gave way to a speculative frenzy driven by runaway banks and real estate developers, all in a cozy relationship with leading politicians. The frenzy was financed with huge borrowing on the part of Irish banks, largely from banks in other European nations.

Note the list — speculative frenzy, runaway banks, real estate developers, and cozy politicians. The four basic food groups.

When the bubble burst, the banks and cozy politicians put the Irish people on the hook for the private banking debts. And an international conspiracy of voices shouted, "Do it to calm the markets. The market will kill you if you don't."

The Irish knuckled under, instituting harsh austerity, and the market is killing them anyway. The private bankers are being made "whole" (did I spell that right?) by the suffering of almost every actual human in Ireland. Krugman again:

Before the bank bust, Ireland had little public debt. But with taxpayers suddenly on the hook for gigantic bank losses, even as revenues plunged, the nation’s creditworthiness was put in doubt.

Normally when this happens, the pro PR campaign, coupled with Serious pundit voices, rolls the complacent, big-screen-blinded public back to sleep. (Ignore that hand in your pocket; it's just glad to see you.) Welcome to the U.S., land of the sleepy Teabagging brave.

But the Irish are taking notice. Writing at the site The Irish Economy, Kevin O'Rourke offers this, by economist Barry Eichengreen (my emphasis):

The Irish “program” solves exactly nothing – it simply kicks the can down the road. A public debt that will now top out at around 130 per cent of GDP has not been reduced by a single cent. The interest payments that the Irish sovereign will have to make have not been reduced by a single cent, given the rate of 5.8% on the international loan. After a couple of years, not just interest but also principal is supposed to begin to be repaid. Ireland will be transferring nearly 10 per cent of its national income as reparations to the bondholders, year after painful year.

This is not politically sustainable, as anyone who remembers Germany’s own experience with World War I reparations should know. A populist backlash is inevitable.

That was early December — this month. Later, O'Rourke passed this lament (my emphasis again):

It is one thing to know that someone you love is terminally ill; their death still comes as a shock.

I certainly don’t want to compare the arrival of the EU-IMF team in Dublin last week to a bereavement. But I was surprised at how upsetting I found it, given that it came as no surprise. It had been clear for a long time that the blanket guarantee given to the liabilities of Ireland’s rotten banks, in September 2008, had saddled the State with a debt that was too big for it to handle. Ten successive quarters of declining real GNP, and one attempt too many to draw a line under the losses of our banks, made our exclusion from international capital markets inevitable. But to know something is one thing; to see it actually happen is something entirely different.

I am not alone in feeling this way, it seems. The economics editor of the Irish Times, Dan O’Brien, wrote that

"nothing quite symbolised this State’s loss of sovereignty than the press conference at which the ECB man spoke along with two IMF men and a European Commission official. It was held in the Government press centre beneath the Taoiseach’s office. I am a xenophile and cosmopolitan by nature, but to see foreign technocrats take over the very heart of the apparatus of this State to tell the media how the State will be run into the foreseeable future caused a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Imagine that here — "foreign technocrats take over the very heart of the apparatus of this State to tell the media how the State will be run into the foreseeable future". Forget the "how" of getting there; just imagine your feeling as you watch. It's like watching the victorious Spartans burn the last ships of the Athenian fleet to their hulls, as the people watched in Pireaus harbor. The end of sovereignty.

O'Roarke closes:

Iceland is an obvious model for us. In a referendum, her voters have already rejected a proposal to pay back their banks’ creditors, who will take major losses. Now they have elected a constitutional assembly charged with drafting a new constitution. Ireland probably needs this more than does Iceland; I wish I were more confident that we will follow the latter’s example.

Iceland and Ireland, a living present test tube.

This could be a turning point in Ireland. At the moment, the Irish are emigrating, leaving Ireland again. But they could stand fast in the next election, and nullify or renegotiate their terms of surrender. If so, the whole force of Establishment Europe will press against them.

And then it will be Ireland's turn to join France and England. If they resist, welcome to the next Irish Troubles. The New Europe indeed.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Tax cut deal will allow parents to give $10 million donations, tax free

There's nothing quite like putting the interest of a handful of people so high on the list during an economic crisis. So imagine, the likes of Stanley O'Neal, Chuck Prince or Angelo Mozillo can easily shovel over millions to their children without paying taxes. The millions they received for business that was wiped off the books, which led to the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street, is now a gift from the American taxpayer to their children. How screwed up are the priorities of Congress to allow this? Deals like this are sickening.

Families would be able to make tax- free gifts to their children or others of as much as $10 million, an increase from the current limit of $2 million, under the tax-cut bill Congress is debating this week.

Beginning in 2011, an individual U.S. taxpayer’s lifetime gift-tax exclusion will jump to $5 million, up from $1 million currently, according to the legislation. Gifts from living parents allow taxpayers to transfer assets such as cash, stocks or shares of a business to their kids and let the value grow outside of the couple’s estate, said Jim Cundiff, an estate planning attorney with McDermott Will & Emery, who’s based in Chicago. Unifying the estate and gift tax exemptions is one of the biggest benefits in the measure, he said.

“You could transfer $10 million next year without paying any tax,” Cundiff said. “That’s a big tax-free gift. This benefit evaporates in two years, so take it while you can.” Parents may use trusts to give the money to descendants if they’re concerned about giving a lot of money directly to their children, he said.

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House to vote on DADT bill, another new poll shows repeal has massive support

The House is going to vote on the standalone DADT bill today. It should pass, but House members still need to hear from us. The switchboard number is 202-224-3121. (UPDATE @ 10:36 AM: House will probably vote on the Rule for the DADT bill around noon -- and move to debate and vote on final passage in the 3 - 4 PM range.)

After passage, the bill will be sent as a "message" to the Senate, thereby avoiding an initial filibuster. The Senate can immediately begin debate on the legislation, although when that debate actually starts is unclear. We will need 60 votes to end the debate. More on what to expect, including GOP "minefields" and "torpedoes" at AMERICAblog Gay.

Repeal of DADT has gone way past the point of debate. An overwhelming majority of Americans support allowing gays and lesbian to serve openly. It's only controversial for the fringe right-wing hate groups, like the Family Research Council, General Amos and GOP Senators. Via Ed O'Keefe:

Nearly eight in 10 Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The results signal continued widespread public support for ending the military's 17-year ban on gays in the military and come as Congress prepares to vote again on legislation ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" law.

Overall, 77 percent of Americans say gays and lesbians who publicly disclose their sexual orientation should be able to serve in the military. That's little changed from polls over the two years, but represents the highest level of support in a Post-ABC poll. The support also cuts across partisan and ideological lines, with majorities of Democrats, Republicans, independents, liberals, conservatives and white evangelical Protestants in favor of homosexuals' serving openly.

NOTE to all White House staffers (including the President), Hill Staffers, Senators and traditional media types: DADT repeal is NOT controversial. Got that? It's NOT controversial. As Dan Savage said so perfectly back in August when a similar poll came out:

If This Fruit Were Hanging Any Lower...it would be a f-ing potato.

That our leaders can't get something with such strong support passed says a lot about our leaders. Read the rest of this post...

Air Force censors websites with WikiLeaks reports

There you go! That will solve the problem because nobody in the USAF has a computer at home. Nor would anyone have a mobile phone with a browser. So maybe we should just call this boneheaded move, China-Lite. Since we are in an economic crisis, how much is this going to cost the taxpayers to restrict data that is easily reached? It's obvious that some in the upper echelons of the military don't appreciate the severity of the economic crisis. It's really time for that to change and their budgets need to experience at least the same level of chopping as other budgets. If they have enough time and money to waste on this, they clearly have much too much budget available.

The Air Force is barring its personnel from using work computers to view the Web sites of The New York Times and more than 25 other news organizations and blogs that have posted secret cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Air Force officials said Tuesday.

When Air Force personnel on the service’s computer network try to view the Web sites of The Times, the British newspaper The Guardian, the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Spanish newspaper El País and the French newspaper Le Monde, as well as other sites that posted full confidential cables, the screen says “Access Denied: Internet usage is logged and monitored,” according to an Air Force official whose access was blocked and who shared the screen warning with The Times. Violators are warned that they face punishment if they try to view classified material from unauthorized Web sites.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The House is planning a vote on the standalone DADT "repeal" bill today. That bill will then be sent as a "message" to the Senate, meaning there can't be an initial filibuster to prevent debate. We'll still need 60 votes to end debate. But, this move expedites the process -- and we need all the help with timing that we can get.

The Senate should finally pass on the Obama/McConnell tax deal today. That bill heads to the House. Unclear what will happen there. Obama is counting on House Democrats to cave like he usually does (and many probably will.) The Senate is going to move on to the omnibus spending bill which includes funding to run the government. That temporary extension of funding runs out on Friday.

Then, there's the START Treaty before Senators even get to DADT and DREAM. Yesterday, Majority Leader Harry Reid told his colleagues, ""There's still Congress after Christmas." Imagine that. Senators are actually expected to work over the holidays -- like most of their constituents (the ones who have jobs anyway.)

Today, the President is hosting a meeting with top business executives. He's hoping they like like him again because of the tax cut deal.

Should be another fun day. Read the rest of this post...

Assange remains in jail as Sweden appeals bail release

Anyone still need proof that the charges against Assange are bogus? When is the last time we saw an international manhunt and then treatment like this for charges like this? The Guardian:

Sweden tonight decided to fight a British judge's decision to grant bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent more than a week in prison over sexual assault allegations involving two Swedish women.

A dramatic day in and around City of Westminster magistrates court saw Assange win bail, but then be forced to return to what his lawyer Mark Stephens described as "Dickensian conditions" at Wandsworth prison while the international legal battle played out.

Sweden has decided to contest the granting of bail to Assange, who is being held pending an extradition hearing, on the grounds that no conditions imposed by a judge could guarantee that he would not flee, a legal source told the Guardian.

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WikiLeaks: Royal Bank of Scotland directors 'failed to live up to their duties'

Perfect timing since the UK's Financial Services Authority just closed the books and found no wrong-doing at RBS. The ongoing efforts to sweep everything under the rug instead of holding people accountable is ridiculous. When people complain about WikiLeaks, they're completely missing extremely important revelations like this. While it's easy to see how hiding this information benefits those in power (including the bankers) but for the taxpayers who had to bail out the banks and accept cuts, the case for secrecy is much less compelling. Shouldn't voters have a clear understanding of what happened when they are being asked to fund such enormous failures?

Society is much better off knowing these details.

Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, is likely to come under pressure to reopen the regulator's probe into Royal Bank of Scotland after leaked US cables show the bank's new chairman Sir Philip Hampton said the former bank directors had failed to live up to their duties.

The private remarks by Hampton that directors had breached their "fiduciary responsibilities" are disclosed barely a week after the City regulator controversially shut its investigation into what went wrong at RBS.

The FSA's decision, revealed by the Guardian, was greeted with astonishment in the financial community and means no action will be taken against the bank or any of its former directors, including former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin.

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