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Public outrage over this news has spurred some members of Congress to take action. Two bills have been introduced in the Senate to prevent government officials from profiting on nonpublic information gained during the course of doing the peoples’ work.On Thursday, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus agreed to hold a hearing on a House version of the legislation know as the STOCK Act — short for Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act.

Bachus (R-AL) himself is a target in “Throw Them All Out” for shorting the market after privately meeting with Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Sen. Bachus fired back against Schweizer earlier this week: The book has “several major and serious untruths and outright factual errors about me,” he wrote in a letter to the publisher.

Other notables who have been cited for profiteering include, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Sen. John Kerry (D-MASS) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). (See: OUTRAGE OF THE DAY: Insider Trading In Congress)

Schweizer, who joined The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task in the accompanying video, does not believe any sort of law banning Congress from trading on inside information will do much good for two reasons: A sense of entitlement on the part of our elected officials and the fact that the SEC does not have the “guts” to enforce such a law.

A really dire view point. 

From DB

Full commentary

France wants leverage and Germany does not. It has been an ongoing stalemate for months.

Full article

60 Minutes Story Sparks Examination

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced Wednesday they would hold a hearing to examine how insider trading laws apply to Congress.

 The hearing, requested by Committee Member Scott Brown, R-Mass., and sparked by a 60 Minutes report, is intended to clarify the laws and rules that govern members of Congress who may profit personally from non-public information they learn in the course of their work.

“Insider trading by members of Congress – if it occurs — is a serious breach of the public trust,” said Lieberman. “No one in Congress should be enriching themselves based on information to which the general public has no access. Our hearing will set the record straight about how existing laws and ethics rules apply to Congress and whether they are sufficient to prevent unethical market trading.”

Collins said: “Elected office is a place for public service, not personal gain.  We have a duty to examine and address practices that can create the appearance of wrongdoing or undermine the public’s confidence in decisions made by Congress.  

“I appreciate Senator Scott Brown’s leadership on this important issue.  We need to assure the American people that the decisions we make are decisions of integrity, in which their interests are put first.”

Senator Brown has introduced legislation intended to prevent members of Congress from profiting on information to which only they are privy.  That bill has been referred to HSGAC. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., will introduce similar legislation soon. House members have introduced similar bills.

Source.

Bill Frezza, Contributor

Would a farmer who put out a trough of slop be surprised if it attracted a bunch of pigs? Then why are activists who promote enlarging the size and scope of government shocked when one program after another is hijacked by corporations that find it easier to seek favors in Washington than customers in the marketplace? And, knowing that such corruption is inevitable, why do mainstream media dismiss those who advocate curtailing government powers as corporate stooges?

What leads anyone to believe that unconstrained power can be channeled in ways that don’t favor the politically connected? And why are the politicians who repeatedly put out the slop troughs, then theatrically rail against the pigs, rarely penalized at the polls?

How long will people continue to believe the “too big to fail” fear-mongering propaganda which both parties use to justify squandering public funds to socialize losses and privatize gains? How many times does a court economist have to be wrong about the impact of expensive economic interventions before we add him to the unemployment rolls?

If protestors are angry that Wall Street interests control the government, why do they want to increase the government’s role in the economy rather than decrease it? What makes them think that banging on drums and spouting incoherent slogans is a more effective way to influence politicians than the proven practice of putting them on the payroll? What would happen to the flow of campaign contributions from crony capitalists if money could no longer buy legislative and regulatory favors? And why do anti-corporate activists keep fruitlessly trying to cut off the flow of money instead of working to ban the favors that attract it?

How does the failure to distinguish between honestly earning profits by meeting customers’ needs and getting rich by looting the public treasury make it possible to end the latter practice without destroying the former? And if we cannot define and promote a sustainable form of capitalism weaned from government corruption, where are all the jobs the nation needs supposed to come from?

How disorderly can class warfare-inspired protests grow, while police are instructed to look the other way, before violence becomes a widespread means of political expression? Will Oakland, Portland, and other cities burn when springtime rekindles the Obamaville encampments that serve as the most potent symbol of this failed presidency? How can politicians, union leaders, and other opportunists not realize that encouraging this mindless thuggery will eventually blow up in their faces? Will the American public recoil when innocent people are killed solely because they work for politically disfavored corporations, or will they shrug it off as collateral damage, as did the Greeks?

When the government hands out other people’s money to crony capitalists promising “green” jobs, does this magically turn them into effective innovators? How are experimental technologies based on ideological fantasies supposed to achieve commercial sustainability by being rushed to market for purely political considerations? How does crippling the evolution of proven energy businesses through capricious regulations and endless environmental reviews make our energy future more secure, our economy more robust, or high paying jobs more plentiful?

Read the rest here.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI1bL9zKrp0

And of course part 2, the 999 version.

A four way tie….

Spin doctors rule the stage

Politics as usual 

“It’s nowhere in the mandate of the ECB to be the actor by default,” Mersch, who is Banque du Luxembourg governor, said. “Acting by default would create the wrong incentives.”

The ECB has intervened repeatedly to calm the bond market in recent months through buying Greek, Spanish, Irish, Portuguese and Italian bonds as fears about them defaulting on their debt repayments grew.

An increasing number of analysts believe that the ECB may have to step in on a larger scale in coming months, if the euro zone crisis continues to escalate.

“Some of the measures that we have taken are limited in volume and time and can only serve the purpose of increasing the efficiency of the monetary transmission mechanism,” Mersch warned.”

Full article

In the wake of the $700 billion TARP bailout, Warren Buffett apparently shaped a plan to clean up toxic assets that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner later adopted–resulting in massive profits for Buffett.

That’s the latest bombshell revelation from investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s sensational new book, Throw Them All Out.

According to Schweizer, after the bailout bill’s passage, Warren Buffett sat down and wrote then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a four-page private letter laying out a plan to clean up the toxic assets plaguing numerous financial institutions.  Buffett proposed something he called a “public-private partnership fund.”  For every $10 billion the private sector invested, Buffett said the government should put up $40 billion.

After Paulson’s exit, incoming Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tweaked the plan and rolled it out in March 2009. But according to quarterly reports from Buffett’s holdings company, Berkshire Hathaway, between the time the billionaire crafted his plan and Geithner adopted it, Buffett quietly purchased 12.4 million shares of Wells Fargo stock and 1.5 million shares of U.S. Bancorp. Once the government unveiled its “Public-Private Investment Program,” bank stocks jumped, resulting in large profits for Buffett.

How much Buffett profited is hard to calculate, since there’s no way to know what his purchase price was. But prior to the government adopting Buffett’s plan, Wells Fargo had been trading at roughly $20 a share. In the weeks after Geithner’s announcement, the stock jumped to $30 a share. Likewise, U.S. Bancorp went from $8 in February 2009 to more than $20 a share by May.

Schweizer’s revelations contradict the image Warren Buffett has worked hard to create as that of a folksy, grandfatherly figure who stays above the political fray and rarely gets mired in the muck of partisan politics. Indeed, Throw Them All Out uncovers other alarming acts of apparent crony capitalism performed by the so-called “Oracle of Omaha.”

For example, Schweizer examines Buffett’s intense private lobbying efforts and deftly-timed stock buys that leveraged TARP bailout monies to create up to $3.7 billion in windfall profits for Berkshire Hathaway.

In September of 2008, Buffett invested $5 billion in the over-leveraged investment house of Goldman Sachs, having obtained impressive terms: Berkshire Hathaway would receive preferred stock with a 10% dividend yield, and the option to buy another $5 billion at $115 a share.

As the political debates surrounding the proposed $700 billion TARP bailout bill heated up, Buffett maintained an appearance of naivete, an “aw shucks” shtick that deferred to the judgment of politicians.  “I’m not brave enough to try to influence the Congress,” Buffett told the New York Times.

Behind closed doors, however, Buffett had become a shrewd political entrepreneur. With his Goldman bet in place, the billionaire exerted his considerable political influence in a private conference call with then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats. During the meeting, Buffett strongly urged Democratic members to pass the $700 billion TARP bill to avert what he warned would otherwise be “the biggest financial meltdown in American history.”

Read the rest here.

President Barack Obama’s overall approval rating remains in the mid-40s, where it has been since July, and he continues to receive much higher marks for foreign policy than for domestic issues, according to a new national survey out one year before he is up for re-election.

A CNN/ORC International Poll released Tuesday indicates that 52% of all Americans approve of how the president is handling the situation in Iraq, an indication that Americans tend to favor Obama’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from that country by year’s end. Forty-eight percent of those questioned approve of how he is handling the war in Afghanistan. By contrast, only 35% have a positive view of his economic track record, and just 38% approve of how he is handling health care policy.

Full results (pdf)

It all adds up to an overall 46% approval rating for the president, with 52% saying they disapprove of how Obama is handling his job in the White House.

“That’s par for the course for Obama, whose overall approval rating has been hovering in the mid 40s in every CNN poll conducted since June,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.

In comparison to recent incumbents running for re-election, Obama’s 46% approval ranks above only Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford – who both lost their re-election bids – in November of the year before an election. Most incumbents who were re-elected had an approval rating above 50% a year before the election. But George W. Bush, at 50%, and Richard Nixon, at 49%, also won re-election, and Bush’s father George H.W. Bush had a 56% approval rating yet lost to Bill Clinton the following year.

“Translation: while the approval rating is an important indicator of a president’s strength, it is not a foolproof predictor of election results,” Holland said.

See how Obama’s number stack up.

The poll indicates that the standard partisan divide over the president remains, with three-quarters of Democrats giving Obama a thumbs up but only 15% of Republicans approving of the job he’s doing in office. By a 54%-42% margin, independent voters disapprove of how the president’s handling his duties.

Women are divided on how Obama’s performing, but men disapprove by a 55%-43% margin. White Americans give Obama a thumbs down by a 61%-36% margin, with non-white Americans give the president a thumbs up by a more than 2-1 margin.

The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International from November 11-13, with 1,036 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

SOURCE 

ROME — Just in time for Christmas, an album of Neapolitan love songs written by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is about to warble its way onto the airwaves, ANSA news agency reported.

The CD entitled “Il Vero Amore” (The True Love), will be released November 22 featuring songs written by Berlusconi, a former cruise-ship singer, and performed by the singer Mariano Apicella.

Berlusconi has not had much to croon about lately, given that he resigned under pressure last Saturday to make way for a new government amid a national debt crisis.

ANSA reported there was speculation the album, originally scheduled for September release, had been deliberately delayed for political reasons.

But Apicella said that was “nonsense” and the delay was “purely for technical reasons.”

The new CD represents the fourth collaboration between Berlusconi and Apicella.

A currency war has been waged through the exporting of inflation to China.

Full article

The department of energy pressured Solyndra to hold off on layoffs until after November elections. The Dems lost that election, but if the story broke it would certainly not have helped them.

Full article

WTF ?

If those pesky ratings weren’t there, then of course everything would be better.

EU leaders are desperately grasping at straws now. If this is what they’re spending their time on, things could get very ugly.

Read here:

The European Union set out proposals for strict new regulations on credit-rating firms today in a move, it said, was aimed in part at diversifying the industry.

As expected, the proposals included a number of measures the largest rating firms–Moody’s Investors Service Inc., Standard & Poor’s Corp. and Fitch Ratings–have staunchly opposed. The launch of the proposals was delayed Tuesday afternoon because of last-minute wrangling over key details, a person familiar with the discussions said.

One of the issues still being debated was a proposal to give the European regulatory agency power to temporarily ban ratings of sovereign debt in exceptional circumstances. The Commission said again Tuesday there will be some kind of ban in the final text but details are still pending.