It's like living in a novel. An Ayn Rand novel...

Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. --Rand Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

From InvestmentNews' "Taking it to The Street" article on 4/30:

The AFL-CIO, the 11-million-member labor federation, is urging Congress to impose a transaction tax on securities trading to help cover the $900 billion cost for a government jobs program they want lawmakers to create.

Why even bother creating the jobs? Why don't they just demand that the government redistribute the money directly to them? I mean, not via check, because they'd have to go to a BANK to get it cashed, but maybe through an envelope of cash?

Who was that guy from Georgia, who grew peanuts and flew in Air Force One?

From "Inflation's coming V-Shaped Recovery" in Forbes:

Last week's release of the Producer Price Index should have sent shivers down the spines of those who worry about silly things like profit margins. Prices for finished goods were up 0.7% month-over-month and 6% year-over-year. Intermediate goods prices were up 7.7% year-over-year. Prices for crude goods have soared 3.2% since March and 33.4% on an annual basis. If that's not a V-shaped recovery in inflation, what would you call it?

The Consumer Price Index is up 2.4% over the past 12 months. No, that level alone does not equal intractable inflation, but it's still a big jump from last summer's 2% CPI drop. Thanks to the Fed's record-sized balance sheet ($2.32 trillion), which has grown by $20 billion since since last week alone, inflation data has become disturbing. April's import prices were up 0.7% from March and 11.4% from a year ago.

What's it called when you have high unemployment and high inflation? Oh yeah - staglfation! Malaise! Jimmy F'ng Carter fucks with our economy from beyond the grave through this administration! **update: James Carter apparently not dead.

Perfect summary from Mike Pento's article:

The losers in all this are members of the general public, who are suffering the double whammy of high unemployment and the erosion of their purchasing power.

2010 New York City Start! Wall Street Run & Heart Walk

It only makes sense if you don't think too hard...

Again, Comrade Kucinich should be voted out of the public eye. His comments, and this article, reflect two big logical flaws in the whole discussion over bonuses.

The first is that it's somehow "bad" that people make a lot of money; this is a ludicrous idea assuming that the money is being made honestly, not stolen. The second is that "banks" should be discouraged from taking risks; this is silly. Taking risk, in anticipation of adequate reward, is the whole point of the banking/investment industry, and any well-functioning (read:capitalist) economy in general.

Like herpes, Spitzer just won't go away

Whenever you feel like things are settling down, that life is starting to make sense again, and that some balance has been restored to the natural order of things, some kind of stupid bullshit will throw it off again. For me, today, just as I was feeling there was a bit of justice and normalcy creeping back into our collective lives (no real reason btw that I felt that, maybe it was just gas) I see this headline in Slate (pic above).

Shouldn’t this guy be in prison for corruption and whore-banging? And didn’t he, in very large part, help cause the AIG debacle? Does anyone have any memory at all left, or are we al living in Memento world?

The solution to the financial crisis

Wow, am I relieved. After a harrowing 2008, when it seemed nobody knew how to even approach the financial crisis, relief is here! We've finally figured it out, through the combined efforts of the brightest minds in finance, government, academia, and meth production.

For months, our leaders were chasing the problem down dead ends, but now they know where to look. The global financial crisis is apparently caused by... JOHN THAIN'S RUG! That's right dear reader, you were probably fooled, as I was, as our government was, into thinking the problem was in fact the Citi corporate jet. But in hindsight it's so lucid! A jet couldn't cause banks to fail! Only an $80k rug can do that!

Now that we know the culprit, we can get to work. The other problems will sort themselves out; Andy Cuomo will "get back" the compensation from the financial industry, Obama will give a speech condemning greed and profits (check), Republicans will make sure everything's still ok with Jesus (who keeps a close eye on finance), and Joe Biden will keep doing...whatever it is that he does for a living.

Meanwhile, Ken Lewis will destroy the evil rug by burning it in effigy on the White House lawn. There will be spontaneous demonstrations of party workers voicing their gratitude and joy. Then POOF! Crisis solved! Oh and somehow Pelosi will work free birth control into this - I'm not sure how but it seems to be the right thing to do.

Hope is here!

House Democrats contemplate abolishing 401(k) tax breaks

Here we goooooooooooooo! Down the drain that is. The socialisation of America has begun, and Obama's not even in office yet! This October 12th article in Investment News highlight a brilliant plan to replace your 401(k) tax deduction with... SURPRISE! A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM!!


House Democrats contemplate abolishing 401(k) tax breaks

Mandatory contributions from workers considered
By Sara Hansard October 12, 2008, 6:01 AM EST

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation's $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.
A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at The New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. She testified last week before Mr. Miller's Education and Labor Committee on her proposal.

At that hearing, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost over the past 15 months.
Under Ms. Ghilarducci's plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5% of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3% a year, adjusted for inflation.
The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated.
"I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s," Ms. Ghilarducci said in an interview. "401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won't have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break."
Under the current 401(k) system, investors are charged relatively high retail fees, Ms. Ghilarducci said.
"I want to spend our nation's dollar for retirement security better. Everybody would now be covered" if the plan were adopted, Ms. Ghilarducci said.
She has been in contact with Mr. Miller and Mr. McDermott about her plan, and they are interested in pursuing it, she said.
"This [plan] certainly is intriguing," said Mike DeCesare, press secretary for Mr. McDermott.
"That is part of the discussion," he said.
While Mr. Miller stopped short of calling for Ms. Ghilarducci's plan at the hearing last week, he was clearly against continuing tax breaks as they currently exist.
SAVINGS RATE

"The savings rate isn't going up for the investment of $80 billion," he said. "We have to start to think about ... whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that's not generating what we now say it should."
"From where I sit that's just crazy," said John Belluardo, president of Stewardship Financial Services Inc. in Tarrytown, N.Y. "A lot of people contribute to their 401(k)s because of the match of the em-ployer," he said.Mr. Belluardo's firm does not manage assets directly.
Higher-income employers provide matching funds to employee plans so that they can qualify for tax benefits for their own defined contribution plans, he said.
"If the tax deferral goes away, the employers have no reason to do the matches, which primarily help people in the lower income brackets," Mr. Belluardo said.
"This is a battle between liberalism and conservatism," said Christopher Van Slyke, a partner in the La Jolla, Calif., advisory firm Trovena LLC, which manages $400 million. "People are afraid because their accounts are seeing some volatility, so Democrats will seize on the opportunity to attack a program where investors control their own destiny," he said.
The Profit Sharing/ 401(k) Council of America in Chicago, which represents employers that sponsor defined contribution plans, is "staunchly committed to keeping the employee benefit system in American voluntary," said Ed Ferrigno, vice president in the Washington office.
"Some of the tenor [of the hearing last week] that the entire system should be based on the activities of the markets in the last 90 days is not the way to judge the system," he said.
No legislative proposals have been introduced and Congress is out of session until next year.
However, most political observers believe that Democrats are poised to gain seats in both the House and the Senate, so comments made by the mostly Democratic members who attended the hearing could be a harbinger of things to come.

ADVICE AT ISSUE
In addition to tax breaks for 401(k)s, the issue of allowing investment advisers to provide advice for 401(k) plans was also addressed at the hearing.
Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., was critical of Department of Labor proposals made in August that would allow advisers to give individual advice if the advice was generated using a computer model.
Mr. Andrews characterized the proposals as "loopholes" and said that investment advice should not be given by advisers who have a direct interest in the sale of financial products.
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 contains provisions making it easier for investment advisers to give individualized counseling to 401(k) holders.
"In retrospect that doesn't seem like such a good idea to me," Mr. Andrews said. "This is an issue I think we have to revisit. I frankly think that the compromise we struck in 2006 is not terribly workable or wise," he said.
Last Thursday, the Department of Labor hastily scheduled a public hearing on the issue in Washington for Oct. 21.
The agency does not frequently hold public hearings on its proposals.
E-mail Sara Hansard at shansard@investmentnews.com.

Hey, you! How much money do you make?

Looky at what I found, courtesy of a Money magazine article:

http://www.glassdoor.com

Gamechanger.

Anonymously post your title, company and salary, and you get info on other salaries. And then you feel bad.

Don't be greedy; share the blame!

Well, looks like the Democrats are again poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Here we are with America blaming Bush and the Republicans for the stock market slide and something nebulously called "bailouts for Wall Street" - and all the Dems had to do to convince voters they were helping is just SHUT UP and pass the bailout plan. Then, Nancy decides to wing it while giving her speech. Why? Was open mic night canceled? Why use the occasion to sound like a petty vindictive crank on the junior prom committee? She could of just shut up and not given the gaggle of stupids the knife with which to cut off their noses from our collective spited face! Or maybe she's been a partisan hack so long that she in fact couldn't have.

live to fight another day...

...any other day. A coworker made a comment to me today, along the lines of "we made history; we can say we were working on that worst day of the last 20 years". Trouble is, it's not whether you work on the worst day - it's if you work on the day after.

Stay on target!

This is great. There's complex financial machinations driving huge changes in multiple financial markets. People's lives are impacted in multiple ways; some lost money in their retirement plans' investments, others are having trouble paying their mortgages, thousands are losing their jobs in the financial industry, and the tax payers will have to pay for some of this fiasco. However, I'm reassured - we should all be reassured! - that both campaigns, congress, and the press are laser-focused on the root problem: rich people.

That's right, we're all shocked (SHOCKED!) to have discovered that there are people who run big companies that make a lot of money - here's a list of the nefarious capitalist pigs. Clearly, this is unacceptable. The American dream - on Main St., not Wall St. - is to toil 10-12 hours per day for a minimum wage (minus union dues). It certainly is NOT to be personally wealthy, or to lead a company that provides the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of employees.