Friday, December 18, 2009

Will Bankster Party End at Year's End Or Just Crank Up? (Six-Figure Federal Salary Gravy Train & Insider Corruption - Mish Opines)

(EXTRA!) The "FIX" Is In

From Outa the Cornfield we get the very good news that our old friend, Lannie Davis, the "Dim Fixer" is back serving the public (again). No wonder that health care bill is in such fine shape. And Obama was the candidate from Hell (DLC). Wonder what that makes Hillary? (And I'm thinking public trials followed by firing squads (if not horses ready for drawing-and-quartering).) (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

His latest bamboozle is the healthcare bill coming out of our Democratically-controlled Senate. Lannie, when appearing on The BoobTube never volunteers or is asked about his fellow partners in crime. As an example, our fine folks in the MSM never tell the audience good ol' Lannie is the Treasurer of Sen. Lieberman's PAC called, I shit you not, Reuniting Our Country.

He is also a lobbyist for Big Pharma but you'd never know by listening to the Idiots' Box staring back at you nite after nite. He is very tight with Billary, Rahm and a whole host of other jaded public servants who are advising our fearless leader, Pres. Obama. Behind the scenes good ol' Lannie has written large portions of Healthcare Reform(?) and with the help of Sen. Lieberman and others these chiselers stand to turn a profit for Big Pharma on billions and billions of taxpayer money. But Healthcare is not just Lannie's strong suit.

He's stolen hundreds of millions from Union Pension Funds with his cronies like Andrew Wiederhorn who was mentored by Hillary's good friend, Mr. Mendolsohn (see Fog Cutter Capital, Capital Mgmt, Wilshire Credit Corp, etc). If Lannie denies this then just ask him who sat on the Board of Directors during the criminal proceedings. I won't go too far into Lannie's and Hillary's coup in the Honduras but I hope you are starting to get an idea about the kind of help Lannie is bringing to the Healthcare Reform. Yes, with friends like this advising our Congress you can only expect things to get much worse for the Average Joe and Jane in the coming years. We'll pay dearly for bad healthcare, terrorism in our own hemisphere, dirty deals with the Corporate State and a whole host of thing not yet devised by "The Fixer" and his associates. I've often thought that, in another era, Lannie would likely be Meyer Lansky. It is only fitting that Lannie got his big shot over a Huge Blowjob(see Clinton/Lewinsky). He's such a cocksucker.

"At a time when incomes are plunging for the private sector middle-class, More Federal Employees Get Six-Figure Salaries."

And why not? Our rulers rule (to the last drop). This précis also exposes why so many people are opposed to true health care reform and actively work against it for others. They don't want to be freed from their sweet taxpayer-subsidized deals. (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession . . . Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker's pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.

"How the $!!! can the Department of Transportation possibly justify 1,690 workers making in excess of $170,000?

The Federal Aviation Administration also has 1,700 workers making in excess of $170,000.

The Department of Transportation was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966. Now there are over 56,000 employees according to the Department of Transportation Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Highlights.

The fiscal insanity does not stop with numbers of employees and their salaries. One also needs to factor in pension benefits that private sector employees do not receive."

- Mike "Mish" Shedlock

At Mish's site one of his regular commenters known as Black Swan (Taleb?) has a few words to say regarding the level of corruption in the Congress that we might want to research a bit more carefully as we weigh the likelihood of what some are calling the upcoming endtimes for the U.S. lower classes. Both Tin Hat and More Arrows' comments are also thrown in here for comic relief. Right. Like we need that.

Black Swan:

According to U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter (D-Fairport, NY), when the market was soaring a few years ago, Congress discovered some of its staff members were using their government-owned computers to play the stock market during work.

"The first apparent piece of that came when there was some legislation about asbestos removal, and what we were going to do about it," Slaughter said. "And there was a senate bill that we were waiting for that sort of collapsed. The next morning, the stock on asbestos went through the roof, and there was no question that they had had some kind of prior notice that this was going to happen."

In 2006, Slaughter introduced a bill known as The Stock Act, which would ban Congress and its members from using their inside knowledge of upcoming legislation to make money."

Surprise, the bill failed.

"We have no business doing that," Slaughter said. "What we're there for is writing legislation to benefit everybody in the United States of America. We are not there to make it possible for somebody to make any money what(so)ever on that information."

To some, it is a frightening prospect at a time when Congress has never had as much financial control over Wall Street, and perhaps inside knowledge of what will happen next in the market."

Black Swan:

I have been predicting that once Blankfein got his $100 million bonus, he'd take his money, cash out of his GS stock, and leave Goldman Sachs and his country to go and run some hedge fund in Europe. I believed that after Lloyd and the the other Gold Men cashed out of their stocks, the market would crash. I had thought that would happen by the end of this year. The fact that Blankfein and his cadre are taking their bonuses in GS stock changes all that. Once again, they are the Masters of the Universe. They will not quit until they have sucked all the economic blood out of taxpaying Americans. Because they are taking their multimillion dollar bonuses in stock, they now have only one major objective, to pump that stock up into the stratosphere. There is only one way for them to do that, and that is though carbon credit trading. Obama, who is owned by the Gold Men, is going to do everything in his power in behalf of his benefactors.

Goldman Sachs not only owns a serious chunk of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), where the majority of carbon credits will be traded, but the Gold Men are also set up and ready to roll in other money making vehicles looking to cash in on the global warming scare scam. The ex-directors of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) are the true owners and managers of Generation Investment Management LLP, the fund in which Al Gore is the public face. The fund is set to make billions for Al and the Gold Men. Remember when Al recently testified in front of Congress on the dangers of "climate change"? That was for the public.

In private, Gore could have easily shown his old elected cronies how to make a killing in the stock market betting with their old friend. Before I realized that there was no such thing as inside trading for members of Congress, I thought Cap and Trade was dead. Now I know that what's good for the Gold Man and their stock shares is good for Congressional stock portfolios. We no longer have to guess as to why our emails, phone calls, petitions and polls had little sway when the taxpayers wanted their Congressmen to vote down TARP. TARP was not only a big money maker for the banksters, but it probably went a long way towards pumping up deflated Congressional financial investments.

Congress just passed its Financial Reform Act today. However, here is what wss not being talked about publicly: As I stated in an above post, unlike Martha Stewart, members of Congress, who make stocks rise and fall by creating the policies that make or break corporations, can legally trade on their own inside information about those future policies. In other words, when the stock market was crashing in 2008, there was nothing to prohibit members of Congress from buying Goldman Sachs stock at $52, passing the Paulson pimped, GS/JPM TARP resolution, and then selling that Goldman Sachs later for $180. Congress can put on a good show about Financial Reform, but, because they are holding all the aces, they will never really change the card game

Tin Hat says:

“Yes Swan, you're right. And the Gold men want C&T and they want Copenhagen. If they can't get Congress to do it, they will get it done through the EPA, the SEC and any other agency that will suit. Come Hell or high water, they will get it done. There may not be time to starve the beast. It's too fat to die quickly.

Many Arrows says:

“I don't think they have the balls to pass C&T. Passage of C&T means revolution for certain. I don't say that they aren't that arrogant, but if they do it will be the biggest, and perhaps fatal, miscalculation since Custer thought he was in luck to have encountered the amassed Sioux.

Mish's site is pretty exciting for a dull economist's lair, and I have no idea how trustworthy his regular commenters are, but it does give some different insight into cap and trade and what's happening in Copenhagen.

And, yes, I voted for Al and his enormous now-green house (although I had no idea about it and the upcoming insider games at that time).

Happy Holidays!

As if. Suzan ______________________

4 comments:

Lisa G. said...

I voted for Al too. Goldman Sachs should be disassembled in the most horrid fashion possible and the executives put in jail. I like the Supermax at Marion, IL. In gen pop.

Disgusting.

Lisa G. said...

Suzan, darling, I love your posts but could you please do me a favor? Break them up into shorter posts. Here's my issue; I have really, really bad ADHD and have a hard time concentrating for more than say 2 minutes. Then I have to re-read the post again and by that time, I'm so pissed off, I can't focus enough to make an even semi coherent response. That is my Christmas wish.
Lisa

TomCat said...

You better listen, Suzan, or she'll sic her bunny on you. ;-)

Cirze said...

Sorry, Lisa,

I write these essays in terms of large themes sometimes - more like small novels?

I apologize for going so long.

My thoughts usually congeal around reading longer pieces that try to pull together different events within a more meaningful scenario.

They are tough to read quickly and on the web they are failures for people looking for short essays that get to the point quickly.

Thanks for the comments. I'll try to do better. I guess you can chalk it up to having too much time on my hands due to the holiday season.

Love you (and you too, TC)!

S