Archive for the 'Elite' Category
Wall Street Pay Caps: The Old CEOs on the Dollar Menu Trick
February 5th, 2009Update: Goldman, JPMorgan Won’t Feel Effects of Executive-Salary Caps Duh. Via: Bloomberg: Executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and hundreds of financial institutions receiving federal aid aren’t likely to be affected by pay restrictions announced yesterday by President Barack Obama. The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the […]
Analyst Who Tried to Get the SEC to Investigate Madoff Is Worried About His Safety
February 5th, 2009Via: Atlanta Journal Constitution: The man who waged a decade-long campaign to alert regulators to problems in the operations of fallen money manager Bernard Madoff told Congress Wednesday that he had feared for his physical safety. Harry Markopolos also assailed the Securities and Exchange Commission in his first appearance before lawmakers. The SEC failed to […]
Financial Coup d’Etat
February 5th, 2009This one kinda sneaks up on you. Make that you read it all the way through. Via: Solari: Slowly, as the pieces fit together, we shared a horrifying epiphany: the banks, corporations and investors acting in each global region were the exact same players. They were a relatively small group that reappeared again and again […]
Obama Requested $40 Billion in Additional “Defense” Spending for 2010
February 3rd, 2009Making the world safe for Hopenosis? Via: Salon: Obama’s 2010 fiscal year budget calls for $527 billion in defense spending (not including the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan). That is more than the U.S. allocated for defense in 2009 and equals what the Bush administration budgeted for 2010: The Obama administration has given the Pentagon […]
Obama Has Appointed Nine Members of the Trilateral Commission to Top-Level and Key Positions
February 3rd, 2009Via: August Review: For anyone who doubts the Commission’s continuing influence on Obama, consider that he has already appointed no less than nine members of the Commission to top-level and key positions in his Administration. According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only 87 members from the United States (the other 337 members […]
Violent Unrest Rocks China as Financial Crisis Hits
February 2nd, 2009Via: Times Online: Bankruptcies, unemployment and social unrest are spreading more widely in China than officially reported, according to independent research that paints an ominous picture for the world economy. The research was conducted for The Sunday Times over the last two months in three provinces vital to Chinese trade – Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu. […]
The End: Michael Lewis Revisits Wall Street Swindling
February 1st, 2009This piece makes a great epilogue for my 2006 Wall Street Chop Shop essay. Via: Portfolio: Now 36, Daniel grew up a lower-middle-class kid in Queens. One of his first jobs, as a junior accountant at Arthur Andersen, was to audit Salomon Brothers’ books. “It was shocking,” he says. “No one could explain to me […]
Geithner Enlists Goldman Sachs Lobbyist as Top Aide
January 30th, 2009In other news, William Dudley, a former Goldman Sachs Chief Economist will replace Geithner at the New York Fed. Via: Politico: Newly installed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued new rules Tuesday restricting contacts with lobbyists – and then hired one to be his top aide. Mark Patterson, a former advocate for Goldman Sachs, will serve […]
Iceland to be Fast-Tracked Into the EU
January 30th, 2009Imagine my shock. Via: Guardian: Iceland will be put on a fast track to joining the European Union to rescue the small Arctic state from financial collapse amid rising expectations that it will apply for membership within months, senior policy-makers in Brussels and Reykjavik have told the Guardian.
“You are up against some really nasty, vicious people,” the Senator said, “They will not hesitate to kill you.”
January 30th, 2009Via: Deep Capture: During the fall of 2006, Patrick Byrne had some strange experiences as well. Somebody broke into Patrick’s home, and soon after, somebody broke into the home of a woman who was Patrick’s girlfriend at the time. Then somebody threw a pair of metal gardening shears through the window of the girlfriend’s restaurant. […]
