Trump Endorses Romney

Donald Trump 

Billionaire US businessman Donald Trump has endorsed front-runner Mitt Romney for the Republican Party's presidential nomination.

Mr Trump announced his support at a Las Vegas hotel he owns, contradicting earlier reports that he would back Romney rival Newt Gingrich.

SEC Allows Wall Street Free Ride

Jamie Dimon, Chairman, President, CEO JPMorgan Chase 

 (NYT)  WASHINGTON — Even as the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up its investigations of Wall Street in the last decade, the agency has repeatedly allowed the biggest firms to avoid punishments specifically meant to apply to fraud cases.

By granting exemptions to laws and regulations that act as a deterrent to securities fraud, the S.E.C. has let financial giants like JPMorganChase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America continue to have advantages reserved for the most dependable companies, making it easier for them to raise money from investors, for example, and to avoid liability from lawsuits if their financial forecasts turn out to be wrong.

JPMorganChase, for example, has settled six fraud cases in the last 13 years, including one with a $228 million settlement last summer, but it has obtained at least 22 waivers, in part by arguing that it has “a strong record of compliance with securities laws.” Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, which merged in 2009, have settled 15 fraud cases and received at least 39 waivers. 

Imagine that...

Did You Make This Kid Rich?

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook



How much did you receive for being so kind?.....Silly you.

Make the boys at the banks sweat....delete your Facebook account. You'll survive. It'll be fun.

Brits Making Bankers Pay For Excesses

(BBC)  Former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin has had his knighthood removed.

Mr Goodwin, who was heavily criticised over his role in the bank's near-collapse in 2008, was given the honour by the Labour government in 2004.

The Queen cancelled and annulled the title following Whitehall advice.

Party leaders, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, welcomed the decision. In the past, only convicted criminals or people struck off professional bodies have had knighthoods taken away.

Mr Goodwin oversaw the multi-billion-pound deal to buy Dutch rival ABN Amro at the height of the financial crisis in 2007, which led to RBS having to be bailed out to the tune of £45bn by taxpayers.

There had been a growing clamour for Mr Goodwin to be stripped of his honour following thousands of job losses at RBS and in the banking industry since then, and the impact on the wider economy.

Right-wing Favorite Now Decries Capitalism Excesses

(derSpiegel)  Political scientist Francis Fukuyama was once the darling of American neo-conservatives. In a SPIEGEL interview, the author of "The End of History" explains why he now believes that the excesses of capitalism are a threat to democracy and asks why there is no "Tea Party on the left."

Fukuyama: We have unthinkingly embraced a certain version of globalization that assumed we had to move very quickly into this post-industrial, post-manufacturing world. Doing so, we forgot that the whole reason real socialism never took off in the US was the fact that the modern economy seemed to produce middle-class societies in which the bulk of the population could enjoy a middle-class status. They worked in industries that were abolished in our countries and transferred to countries like China.

SPIEGEL: Even if members of the middle class held on to their jobs, they saw their income stagnate or even decline, while a few of globalization's winners at the top reaped outsize rewards. The level of income inequality in advanced nations is greater than ever before. What effect does that have on our societies?

Fukuyama: It is not good for democracy. If income is relatively evenly distributed and there are not very sharp differences between rich and poor, you have a greater sense of community. You have a greater sense of trust. You do not have parts of the community that have superior access to the political system that they can use to advance their own interests ...

SPIEGEL: … all of which undermines the democratic process.

Fukuyama: What you are going to see in a democracy with a weaker middle class is much more populism, more internal conflict, an inability to resolve distributional issues in an orderly way. In the United States right now, you do have this return of populism. It should be on the left, but actually most of it is on the right. If you talk to Tea Party members about their feelings regarding the government, they are very passionate. They hate the government. They think they have been betrayed by elites.

SPIEGEL: Americans, however, are beginning to discuss the problem of social inequality much more openly.

Fukuyama: They are slowly beginning to realize it. The recent public focus on inequality and the Occupy Wall Street movement are harbingers of change in that direction. The trouble is that in the United States it is extremely difficult to mobilize people around pure class issues. President Barack Obama was ostracized as a "European socialist" when he brought up the idea of higher taxes on the rich. These class debates are historically unpopular -- except for a very brief period in the 1930s during the Great Depression.

All You Need To Know

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO

(Bloomberg)  Mitt Romney’s investment background, criticized by some of his Republican presidential rivals, is helping him build a financial advantage over them.
In the fourth quarter of last year, eight of the 10 biggest donors to Romney, co-founder of Boston-based Bain Capital LLC, a private-equity firm, worked for banks and investment funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on U.S. Federal Election Commission information released yesterday. Citigroup Inc. (C) employees gave $196,600. Those at JPMorgan Chase & Co. donated $180,518, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) workers contributed $106,580.

Making Oneself Relevant

NEW YORK — The Rev. Jesse Jackson is entering the fray over The Recording Academy's cuts to its Grammy categories: He's asking to meet with the president of the organization and has raised the possibility of protests with the awards less than two weeks away.

The civil rights activist sent a letter to Neil Portnow, the president and CEO of the Academy, and expressed his dismay over the Academy's decision last April to cut its categories from 109 to 78, the biggest overhaul in its then 53-year history. In the letter, Jackson said he had been talking to members of the entertainment community and asked that his organization, the Rainbow Push Coalition, "meet with you urgently to express our concerns and to see if we might help resolve this conflict ... and allow the Grammys to do what they do best."

Democrats' Awakening

 A Telling Sidelight

(NYT)  "For two years, when their party controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, Democratic leaders failed to change the rules on “carried interest” to ensure that private equity titans and venture capitalists pay more than a 15 percent tax rate on fees reaped from their investor clients. Democrats hardly mentioned raising the 15 percent tax rates on dividends and capital gains, the largest reason the super-rich pay less of their income in taxes than many middle-class families."

Andrew Adler Suggests Mossad Kill Obama

(Haaretz)  The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, who suggested Israel should assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama, has resigned from his post, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Monday.

Adler, who has since apologized for his article, listed three options for Israel to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons in an article published in his newspaper last Friday. The first is to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, the second is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the third is to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

Grand Canyon Safe For 20 Years

(treehugger)  After nearly two years of discussion over whether or not uranium mining would be allowed near the Grand Canyon, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce approval of a 20-year moratorium on new uranium mining claims in a million-acre buffer zone around the Grand Canyon, The New York Times reports.

The Times says the decision "would allow a small number of existing uranium and other hard rock mining operations in the region to continue while barring the new claims.Secretary Salazar suspended new uranium claims on public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon for two years, overturning a Bush administration policy that encouraged thousands of new claims when the price of uranium soared in 2006 and 2007."

Investors Pay Germany For Bonds

Germany sells six-month bonds at negative yields

(BBC)  Investors are flocking to havens to store their cash, amid continuing worries about the eurozone debt crisis.

Germany sold 3.9bn euros (£3.2bn) of six-month bonds at an average yield of -0.0122%, the first auction with a negative yield.

That means investors are effectively willing to pay Germany for the privilege of lending to it.

Ya Gets What Ya Pays For

(Haaretz)  American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and owner of the Israeli daily Israel Hayom, has given $5 million to an independent group backing Newt Gingrich's presidential bid.

A person familiar with the situation said Adelson — founder and majority owner of Las Vegas-based company that owns Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem — made the contribution Friday to Winning Our Future, a pro-Gingrich super PAC. The person said Adelson would spend heavily to assist whichever candidate wins the Republican nomination.

Addressing a Hanukkah celebration for hundreds of youths visiting Israel as part of the Taglit Birthright program on Sunday, Adelson said, “Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why [Newt] Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people.

UP!!! Chris Hayes!!!

Probably just because of my age....but this kid seems to have overdosed on strong lattes and sugar...

Too Bad...I Got Mine!

(Bloomberg)  John Paulson, the billionaire money manager mired in the worst slump of his career, lost 10.5 percent in his Gold Fund this year even as the metal heads for its 11th straight annual gain, according to people familiar with the fund’s performance.

The fund, which invests in mining stocks and other gold- related securities, remains the best performer in Paulson’s $28 billion fund family this year. His Paulson Advantage Fund, which seeks to profit from corporate events such as takeovers and bankruptcies, has fallen about 35 percent. The performance numbers for the two funds are from Dec. 28, 2010, through Dec. 20, 2011, and may not reflect returns for all shareholders, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

Paulson lives on the Upper East Side of New York City. He also has homes in Southampton, New York and Aspen, Colorado.

Paulson became a billionaire by short-selling subprime mortgages in 2007, and made $3.5 billion that year.  In 2010, he beat a hedge-fund record by making nearly $5 billion.

Arms Dealer/Hollywood Tycoon

Arnon Milchan is my fly open? 

 (NYT)  “Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan,” written by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, and set for publication on July 30 by Gefen Books, now holds that Mr. Milchan — whose credits include “Love and Other Drugs” and “Knight and Day” — at least through the mid-1980s was a full-fledged operative for Israel’s top-secret intelligence agency, Lakam. (The acronym is from the Hebrew for the blandly named Science Liaison Bureau.)

In that capacity, according to the book, Mr. Milchan supervised government-backed accounts and front companies that financed “the special needs of the entirety of Israel’s intelligence operations outside the country.”

The “special needs” serviced by Mr. Milchan, who is now 66 years old, included buying components to build and maintain Israel’s nuclear arsenal. But with the indictment in 1985 of Richard Kelly Smyth, an aerospace executive who had made illegal shipments of nuclear triggers through Milchan companies, Mr. Milchan unexpectedly found his arms-dealing in the news even as he was wrangling with Universal Pictures over the near collapse of a movie, “Brazil,” directed by Terry Gilliam.

Mr. Milchan’s disclaimer about profiteering provoked further research into how various companies set up by Mr. Milchan or associated with Milchan Brothers traded in arms for Israel and other countries. While doing so, he set aside money in accounts for use by Israel, allowing that country’s prime minister “to execute decisions beyond Israel’s borders without the need for the formal budgeting, cabinet approvals, petty internal politics, or leaks to the press that might endanger the operation.”

In the late 1990s, the News Corporation, which owns Fox, paid $200 million for a 20 percent stake in Mr. Milchan’s Regency Enterprises. A News Corporation spokeswoman, Teri Everett, had no immediate response to a query about the company’s reason for backing Mr. Milchan, and about any reaction by its chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, to revelations in the new book. (Mr. Milchan’s latest film for Fox, the comedy “Monte Carlo,” opened to soft reviews and modest prospects a few weeks ago.)

Merry Christmas

Stop Being Mean To Jamie!!

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, recently bemoaning the fact that most of the lesser people find him and his ilk distasteful:


“Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO told an audience member who asked about hostility toward bankers. “Sometimes there’s a bad apple, yet we denigrate the whole.”

Dimon, 55, whose 2010 compensation was $23 million, joined billionaires including hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Home Depot Inc. co-founder Bernard Marcus in using speeches, open letters and television appearances to defend themselves and the richest 1 percent of the population.

Uhh...Jamie....perhaps it has something to do with this:


Big Bank Profile: JPMorgan Chase

Federal taxpayer bailout received: $94.7 billion
Lobbying fees in 9 months after bailout: $4.2 million
Campaign contributions in 2008 federal elections: $6.0 million
Profits for 1998-2008: $97.6 billion
Profits for the first half of 2009: $4.86 billion
Bank fees for first half of 2009: $3.45 billion
Change in bank account fees (2003-08): +249.5%
Percent of first half 2009 profit from fees: 71%
Credit card income for first half of 2009: $3.56 billion
Median JPMorgan Chase bank teller wage: $10.58/hour or $22,006 annually
2008 CEO Jamie Dimon pay: $19.7 million (893 times median teller wage)
2008 bonus pool: $8.7 billion
First half 2009 bonus and compensation pool: $14.5 billion
Cash bonuses (top 5 execs) last 10 years: $254.9 million
Effective tax rate in 2008: -33.4%
Offshore subsidiaries in tax havens: 53

An Alternative Dimension

4th Best President?  You've got to be kidding me!

“The issue here is not going be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do.”
(Politico)

The "Democracy" of the Middle East

(Haaretz)


Cnaan Advertising, the company that places advertisements on Egged buses in Jerusalem, has refused to carry ads for activists campaigning in support of women's equality.

The ads all show fully-dressed women. But Cnaan, which owns the franchise for bus advertising in Jerusalem, nevertheless refused.

The company has refused to place ads featuring women on buses for several years, claiming they are not worth its while because Haredim vandalize the buses.

Cnaan's attorney, Ido Frishta, replied that the company cannot run bus ads with women's images, because they lead to vandalism. Cnaan suggested the movement either make do with advertising on billboards or post a NIS 50,000 guarantee to cover any vandalism damages.

The sex segregation of busses has become one of the hottest topics in Israeli domestic politics, coming to a head last week with the story of Tanya Rosenblit who refused to move to the back of a bus on the order of a religious Jewish man.

Tanya Rosenblit has made her stand, but she wasn't the first. In 2006, Miriam Shear was slapped, kicked and punched by a group of Orthodox Jewish men on a Jerusalem bus for refusing to move to the back.