"Corporate Casino Capitalists Used Latest Tricks To Cook Books"

If you also wondered where the CPA's and even low-level accountants were hiding out during the financial bloodfest, our old pal Ralph Nader has a few facts for you here. (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

It is now obvious that the accountants collapsed their own skill, integrity and self-respect faster and earlier than the collapse of Wall Street and the corporate barons. The accountants-both external and internal-could have blown the whistle on what Teddy Roosevelt called the "malefactors of great wealth. "The Big Four auditors knew what was going on with these complex, abstractly structured finance instruments, these collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and other financial products too abstruse to label. They were on high alert after early warning scandals involving Long Term Capital Management, Enron, and others a decade or so ago. These corporate casino capitalists used the latest tricks to cook the books with many of the on-balance sheet or off-balance sheet structured investment vehicles that metastasized big time in the first decade of this new century. These big firms can't excuse themselves for relying on conflicted rating companies, like Moody's or Standard & Poor, that gave triple-A ratings to CDO tranches in return for big fees. Imagine the conflict. After all, "prestigious" outside auditors were supposed to be on the inside incisively examining the books and their footnotes, on which the rating firms excessively relied.

Over at Driftglass' castle you'll find the best delineation of exactly what went over so well (for them, not us) out of the rational thinking of the radical right porkers in the 80's, when they adopted the PR of representing a new "morning in America" in order to better obscure their newest con artistry necessary for the separation of the much more available (after the end of the Vietnam war spending) money from the fingers of the workers. Sir Galahad Driftglass has it defined as a software problem, and I've got to give him props for that philosophical glimpse into the souls (naaah) of pig people. Inhale deeply here. (This guy is the B E S T!) And is looking for a decent job (like someone else here).

These are not people and we will bring ourselves to tears over and over again if we try to treat them as such; these are morally imbecilic automatons, endlessly calculating how to carve out the biggest slice of whatever pie is currently cooling on society’s windowsill. . . . Of course, if you’re a Debit Lord instead of a Drug Lord you don’t need to go through the mess of killing everyone that stands in your way. If you’re in the business of flinging around billions instead of bullets, you can simply keep pouring money on Congress, wingnut think tanks, and astroturf activist groups until they rig the game on your behalf. Purchase enough Senators and Representatives, buy enough time shares in enough Presidential candidates, and eventually – with third-rate intellectuals grabbing every microphone to babble on and on about the virtues of “liberating” the markets, “creative destruction” and Ayn Rand…with Fox News trumpets blaring….and with the pig people cheering right on cue -- they’ll rewrite the rules to make your favorite flavor of usury, theft, or three-card Monte as legal as sea water. Until, of course, it all falls down. Until Saddam makes a cold-bloodedly rational decision that ruthlessly invading his neighbor is now in his own interest. Until the banksters make the cold-bloodedly rational decision that kiting trillion-dollar checks against toxic mortgages will make them more money than, say, investing wisely for the long term. Because fuck the long term. Fuck wisdom. Until, of course, we wake up one more time to find that the creatures peeing down on us from the commanding heights are not human beings at all.

And we've known this for how many years? Bravo (and a star turn from the brightest of the glasses) Driftglass! Suzan ________________________

Criminals, Felons, Liars Arise Anew - Taxpayers Await Your Latest Orders! ($12.8 Trillion to Wall Street - So Far)

How did it get so easy for thugs and criminals like our friendly banksters (and perhaps even the solid citizens behind the Madoff scam) to put another ripoff into play whereby the taxpayers fund their latest schemes on top of the older and now boring ones (which no one even wanted to explain until forced to by the holding back of the rest of the bailout moolah)? (Please note the essay I published on April 6, 2009, for background on the latest one: Larry Summers' part-time lover gig.)

The Associated Press this week reports that “companies that spent hundreds of millions lobbying successfully for a tax break enacted in 2004 got a 22,000-percent return on that investment” — $100 billion in all.

David Sirota has the facts secreted away within this humorous essay. (Emphasis marks the spot that's hot.)

The Best Investment Money Can Buy! By David Sirota Feeling sorry for yourself? Struggling to get by? Wondering how you can get a bailout? Well, stop moping, because it’s not too late! I may not have Suze Orman’s verve or Billy Mays’ voice. But I’ve discovered a revolutionary risk-free investment plan straight from those who brought us the economic meltdown. So in this column-fomercial, I won’t waste your time with Ginsu knives or cash-for-timeshare schemes — I’m going to help make you rich beyond your wildest dreams! Look, we’ve all heard about Wall Street’s losses. But you probably didn’t hear about Corporate America’s newest sure thing: a path to financial freedom far more reliable than any decent-paying job. It’s something so old-fashioned that even amateur investors can understand it! It’s called graft — a surefire wealth creator that takes your investments, modifies laws, and delivers returns that the best stock trader could never dream of! This is the ShamWow of strategies, the Flowbee of economics, the Ronco of investing. Just look at the profits it generates! In the last decade, the financial industry’s $5 billion investment in campaign contributions and lobbyists resulted in deregulation, which delivered trillions to executives. And when the bubble burst, there was another boatload of free money! By Bloomberg News’ account, $12.8 trillion worth of taxpayer loans, grants and guarantees — all to Wall Street! But wait . . . there’s more! The Associated Press this week reports that “companies that spent hundreds of millions lobbying successfully for a tax break enacted in 2004 got a 22,000-percent return on that investment” — $100 billion in all. That could be you! Of course, the secret is investing heavily in specific political stocks. For example, the banking industry recently paid Rahm Emanuel $16 million for about two years of work. That investment was recently paid back when, as President Obama’s chief of staff, Emanuel led the January campaign to release another $350 billion in bank bailout funds. Turning a $16 million down payment into a $350 billion payout—that’s huge! Likewise, Goldman Sachs hired former Senate aide Mark Patterson as one of its lobbyists — an investment that proved a huge winner when Patterson became the Treasury Department’s chief of staff and the agency subsequently killed proposals to limit executive compensation at bailed-out banks. Cha-ching! And the hedge fund industry paid economist Larry Summers $5.2 million in 2008 for part-time work — an investment that hit pay dirt when Summers became Obama’s top economic aide and the administration resisted tough international hedge fund regulations that some G-20 countries wanted. Show me the money! That’s right, the surest way to make big cash is not to invest in people with proven business experience or in valuable entrepreneurial ventures, but in blue-chip members of Permanent Washington — career politicos and bureaucrats who inevitably get back into positions of power and payback! Now I know you think that I sound like the guy in the question-mark suit and that my plan seems like a scam. But it’s perfectly legal! So how much would you pay for this kind of opportunity? $100 trillion? $50 trillion? What if I said you could get all this for just a few billion in pocket change? Because that’s all it takes to start no-risk investing! It’s THAT easy! Why let the corporate guys make all the money off government? Why waste time working for companies that make stuff when you can buy the one company that simply prints cash? Order now and try my product! It’s not available in stores, but if you call within the next 15 minutes, we’ll throw in free congressional and White House phone directories valued at $49.95! Operators are standing by!

Sounds like a winner. Again. Suzan ________________________