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Civil War In Corporate America: Banks Battling The Chamber On Accounting Rules

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:41:34 -0800

The banking industry is hoping to pull off a quiet power grab that has eluded its grasp since the Great Depression, by stripping the independence of the board that sets financial accounting standards.

The move could effectively let banks set their own accounting standards in rough economic times.

Astonishingly, at a time when the public is crying out for greater regulation to limit excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, the banks are trying to get Congress to agree that the next time there's a big downturn, they should have the ability to alter their accounting standards -- essentially, fudge the numbers -- so that the public and investors won't be able to tell how insolvent they really are. By ignoring their declining asset values, they can avoid the standard requirement of raising more capital.

The mechanism is contained in an amendment set to be introduced in mid-November by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) that would move final authority over the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from the Securities and Exchange Commission to a new body, a so-called "oversight" board, that would include the officials charged with managing systemic risks to the financial markets.

These regulators would have the authority to override FASB's accounting guidelines by taking into account economic conditions.

The move is so radical that it has split corporate America. The bankers and members of Congress who support it have earned themselves an unlikely enemy: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

A typical business or investor, after all, prefers honest, independent accounting, because they buy and sell real things based on real value.

African Nations Make a Stand at UN Climate Talks | CommonDreams.org

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:05:54 -0800

"The poorest countries say they are dying now and the rich are just sitting back doing nothing. Hopefully they will take action now," said Asad Rehman, head of international climate with Friends of the Earth.

"The world's largest historical emitter, the US, is missing in action during the climate negotiations, on its targets, on its finance - and the developing world is rightfully calling them out on it," said Greenpeace USA climate campaign director Damon Moglen.

"It is clear that for many countries, enough is enough. The fact that this has come today from countries including Kenya, President Obama's ancestral home, should be his wake-up call. Obama can no longer hide behind failed congressional legislation. He must provide ambitious, science-based emissions reductions targets and come to table in Copenhagen."

The Existentialist Cowboy: How the GOP is Killing America

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:58:32 -0800

The US is much, much worse off these days than Mexico which often takes the blame for the drug trade and 'income disparities'. Fact is --income and wealth inequalities are much, much worse in the US than in Mexico. At the end of the Bush Sr era, the upper quintile alone had benefited from the Reagan tax cuts. Even fewer benefited from Shrub's largesse! So --where do the GOP 'yankees' get off aiming their demagoguery at Mexico?

The piddly amounts of drugs sold across the border are a strawman --peanuts compared to the heist of US wealth pulled off by just one percent of the US population!

The GOP is either nuts or crooked or both! I often wonder what the US might have been if right wing psychopaths had not demagogued every war or every so-called 'crisis' and in ways that enriched only their 'base'! The end result is that just one percent of the entire population owns more than some 95 percent of the rest of us combined! Anyone not of that ruling elite still supporting the elitist GOP and complicit DINOs is nuts! And I have no sympathy for you!

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37189009/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:41:38 -0700

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Monday that the agency has set up a unit specifically to deal with rich Americans who are hiding assets.

"We will take a unified look at the entire web of business entities controlled by a high-wealth individual," Shulman said. "At least initially, we will be looking at individuals with tens of millions of dollars of assets or income."

"The high-wealth unit will focus on trusts, real estate investments, privately held companies and other business entities controlled by rich individuals. While use of sophisticated legal structures are at times legal, there are other instances where they 'mask aggressive tax strategies,' he said."

The Wall Street Journal says "wealth advisers" are upset.
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Yeah... well they would be upset, wouldn't they?

The wealth advisers have been feasting off of these tax avoidance scams for a long time and they want that gravy train to keep rolling.

In the 1940s and 1950s about 2/3 of all taxes were paid by the wealthy and corporations but now they only pay about 1/3 of taxes. Guess who got to make up that difference? Right... middle class wage earners who cannot take advantage of these ploys, designed especially for the very wealthy.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37185849/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:37:07 -0700

THE two huge bombs that killed at least 155 people and injured more than 700 in Baghdad on Sunday have done more than kill and destroy. Apart from adding to the generalised misery that is Iraq, they have struck a blow at the unsteady arrangement of fiefdoms that the country has become.

The bombs have had several effects. The primary one is to undermine the government of the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who faces parliamentary elections in January. Those elections are now in doubt because Iraq's power blocs cannot agree on an electoral law establishing how Iraqis are to vote. Before Sunday Maliki's chief claim was to have improved security to a point where its daily irritations - checkpoints, blast walls and barbed wire which choke traffic in the city - could be dismantled somewhat. Not any more. As the security apparatus returns, Maliki has little to point to in the way of achievements. The economy is still sluggish and unemployment is not improving. Security is fundamental to both. If he cannot guarantee that, he can make no improvements to Iraqis' lot.
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The bombings were the deadliest since April 2007, according to casualty figures released by Iraqi authorities, and they drew particular outrage because they struck at cabinet ministries and city government offices that are supposed to be especially secure.

One of the explosions also ruptured a water line, causing a flood that turned red as it mixed with blood. Corpses bobbed underwater and dangled from rooftops. An Iraqi soldier fainted at the scene upon hearing that eight of his comrades had died.

"This is unbearable; this is criminal," said Mahmoud al Fahmawi, an ambulance driver who collected jaws, a heart and other body parts from the scene.
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COMMENT: Iraq may have dropped off the radar of the US mainstream media, but the conflict there is far from over. Indeed, the real battle for the control of that oil-rich country may have barely started.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37185483/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:21:20 -0700

While Goldman Sachs reports historic profits, more than 930,000 foreclosure applications have been processed in the past three months.

The gap between rich and poor is visibly growing much wider.

Author Les Leopold says financiers began looting the country in the 70's, as productivity rose, and salaries didn't.

"In 2007, those people who reported incomes of ten million dollars and over...had as much income as the bottom 35 million people," Leopold explained.

"And those reporting a million or more in income had as much income as half the population," he added.

"It's getting worse now because the 29 million unemployed and underemployed are using up their resources and the prospects of finding jobs now is very difficult," he concluded.

Leopold says America has turned into a billionaire bailout nation, as the poorest sink deeper into debt.

So, when Wall Street delivers a good forecast, the sunshine may all depend on where you stand.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37185214/

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:09:47 -0700

US economist and author Max Wolf says the American economy is a ticking time bomb, and there is no telling when it will go off.
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As a result of the cumulative mistakes in the government policies, another serious letdown in the US and global economy will definitely happen soon, Max Wolf says:

"The question is when. We've done a lot of things that are dangerous, so we could have it quite soon."

"We have done absolutely nothing to basically change the root causes of those problems in the economy, which means we're living on borrowed time," he added.
Root causes

So what are the roots of the problem? The economist names the wage of an average American, which has stayed flat for too long:

"For 35 years the average American's wages has gone nowhere. They've been flat... And the problem we have now is that they cannot borrow that much again. And if Americans do not borrow, and their wages don't go up... this becomes a problem, because 70% of the US GDP is private consumption."

Moreover, 15% of the economic activity in the world, Wolf says, is American private consumption:

"If that turns down, which it has, and if it stays down, which it likely will, this means we basically push down economic activity for all 6.2 billion people on Earth."
"Exaggerate and simplify"

Despite all the obvious problems of the credit crunch and alarming prognoses, American politicians have announced a recovery. Max Wolf is sure they will continue doing this unless it becomes "unbelievably obvious" that there is not any.

On top of that, he says there is hardly any difference between the policy of the Obama administration and that of his predecessor, George W. Bush:

"You have to try really hard to see the difference... and in many areas - a shocking lack of difference."

"What we've been celebrating for the last four months is that life is getting worse for the average American more slowly than it was getting for the average American last year. The bottom 80% of people in this country are continuing to struggle," he added.

The coverage of the crisis in the United States represents another problem. The country's media seem to be trying to distract common Americans from reality by following the two-part rule, the economist says: "exaggerate and simplify."
Dollar diplomacy

With all that, should we still trust the US dollar as a reserve currency?

"The long-term trajectory of the US government is bad for the US macro-economy and is bad for the dollar," Wolf says.

Apart from the path the US economy has taken, the problem is also in the nature of modern fiat currencies, or paper currencies, like the US dollar. They are backed by nothing but the will of the world to hold them, and have no intrinsic value.

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37165036/

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:38:36 -0700

Six recent developments indicating USA in decline

1. The G-7 (G-8 if you include Russia) agreed to turn over responsibility for oversight of the world economy to a larger, more inclusive Group of 20 (G-20), adding in China, India, Brazil, Turkey...there is no doubt that the move itself signaled a shift in the locus of world economic power from the West to the global East and South -- and with this shift, a seismic decline in America's economic preeminence has been registered.

2. America's economic rivals are conducting secret (and not-so-secret) meetings to explore a diminished role for the U.S. dollar -- fast losing its value -- in international trade.

3. Washington has been rebuffed by both Russia and China in its drive to line up support for increased international pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear enrichment program. Moscow's quick dismissal of U.S. pleas for cooperation on the Iranian enrichment matter can only be interpreted as a further sign of waning American influence.

4. Exactly the same inference can be drawn from a high-level meeting in Beijing on October 15th between Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Iran's first vice president, Mohammed Reza Rahimi.

5. Efforts to secure international support for the allied war effort in Afghanistan have also met with a strikingly disappointing response.

6. Rio de Janeiro picked to be the host of the 2016 summer Olympics, the first time a South American nation was selected for the honor.

Eric E. Burns: Fox News Is the Story

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:32:29 -0700

The issue is not whether it was a good idea politically for the White House to say that the emperor has no clothes. The issue is that the emperor actually has no clothes. In other words, the administration's comments about Fox News aren't the story. Fox News is the story.

And yet, during a recent press conference, ABC's Jake Tapper asked Robert Gibbs how Fox News -- "one of our sister organizations," as he put it -- is different from any other network. His question indicates the pervasive unwillingness among members of the media to officially kick Fox News to the curb of the press club. By legitimizing Fox News as a news organization, reporters and commentators are enabling the network to continue conducting a massive conservative political campaign under the guise of journalism. In the process, they are permitting Fox News to dominate the national discussion by spreading smears and lies -- smears and lies that become conventional wisdom. They are also defending an organization that has nothing but contempt for journalistic standards -- hence undermining their own profession and the public interest at the same time.

Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press. Fox News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it was treated as such by our nation's media.

The evidence supporting such a reality is overwhelming. To begin with, Fox News CEO (and former GOP campaign consultant to Ronald Reagan) Roger Ailes has described his station's confrontation with the Obama administration as "the Alamo." Fox News senior vice president Bill Shine said Fox was "the voice of opposition." In other words, the entire operation has an explicit political agenda, not just a few hosts. There is no separation between Fox News' "opinion" programming and its "news" programs. "
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btw-- Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012

"Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that's what we need now," says one Ailes friend who is encouraging the Fox founder, chairman and CEO to seek the Republican nomination....
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So... the CEO of an outfit that clearly opposes a sitting president is upset that his group is called "partisan" even though he himself may run against that president!

We should remember that media magnate Silvio Berlusconi did parlay his right wing media empire into his current political status. (Bloomberg may eventually try to do the same thing.)

Update: Ailes has turned down a presidential run: "This country needs fair and balanced news more now than ever before, so I'm going to decline a run for the presidency. Besides, I can't take the pay cut."

http://sharkat.stumbleupon.com/review/37115004/

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:22:57 -0700

John McCain -- `Tech Troglodyte' And Top Recipient Of Telecom Cash -- Unveils Bill To Block Net Neutrality

John McCain On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) became the Republican Party's lead man on technology issues (and probably made Glenn Beck a happy man) by introducing the "Internet Freedom Act." The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from making sure that Internet service providers don't create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications. McCain called these net neutrality rules a "government takeover of the Internet."

John McCain On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) became the Republican Party's lead man on technology issues (and probably made Glenn Beck a happy man) by introducing the "Internet Freedom Act." The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from making sure that Internet service providers don't create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications. McCain called these net neutrality rules a "government takeover of the Internet."

Ironically, McCain cites Google and Yahoo as examples of why net neutrality rules need to be blocked. In fact, both companies have said that without such measures, the "longstanding openness of the Internet" will be threatened.

However, telecoms largely support blocking net neutrality rules, and McCain is a long-time friend of these businesses. McCain was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the telecom industry, taking in $894,379 in the past two years.

Even as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005, McCain made sure to craft technology rules that benefited his campaign donors. He opposed a program designed to provide discounts to schools and libraries to connect to the Internet and supported large telecom mergers.

Of course, the GOP point man on technology issues is someone who, just last year, called himself a computer "illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get." In July 2008, he said he has "never felt the particular need to e-mail." As former FCC chairman Reed Hundt has explained, "Basically, John is a technological troglodyte, and proud of it" -- and we're now supposed to trust him to shape the way we use the Internet.
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See video explanation of this matter at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/33456265#33456265