Oil Shocks Could Sink Economic “Recovery,” Elizabeth Warren Joins Jon

January 26th, 2012 - by: danny

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RT: Keiser Report: I join Max Keiser after he talks about unemployment and criminality on Wall Street

This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss unemployed Wall Streeters and I add my two cents.

Quote of the Day:South Africa’s Mail & Guardian: “Archbishop Desmond Tutu has warned the world’s elite (in Davos) that it is time for women to seize control of the world and sort out the mess men have made.’

BBC: Oil Shock Could Disrupt The Global Economy

Here we have the President of the US and leaders in Europe urgently discusing how to keep their economies from tanking, while at the same time imposing economic embargoes on Iranian oil. Guess Who That Will Hurt?

The IMF warned that if the West imposed financial sanctions on Iran, it would be tantamount to an oil blockade, and the shock to the market could be as bad as from Libya’s revolution last year.

Iran produces 5% of global oil output.

Moreover, if Iran goes ahead with a threat to blockade oil exports via the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf, the IMF said the shock could be even greater.

About a quarter of all oil produced globally, and some 40% of all oil exports – including those from Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – are shipped through the Straits each year.

“A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would constitute, and be perceived by markets to presage, sharply heightened global geopolitical tension involving a much larger and unprecedented disruption,” the Fund said in a regular note to the Group of 20 leading industrialised countries.

The market is already pricing in a small risk of an escalation of tensions between Iran on the one hand, and the US, Europe and Israel on the other, according to the IMF’s estimates.

The Empire Strikes Back: Obama Critics Are on fire to discredit him

Boehner: Obama “Almost Un-American”

House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday forcefully denounced the Democrats’ campaign theme that they are for the middle class and Republicans are for the wealthy, saying the politics the president is running on are “almost un-American.”

LBN reports but without saying that the president has little to do with setting consumer prices:

Under Obama, Price of Gas Has Jumped 83 Percent, Ground Beef 24 Percent, Bacon 22 Percent: So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon, an increase of 26 percent. By December 2011, the price of regular unleaded gas per gallon was $3.28, an 83 percent increase from January 2009. The price of unleaded gasoline never reached the 10-year high of $4.09 back in July 2008 under George W. Bush’s administration, but it did get close.

Baseline Scenario.com: Progressives Happy About Obama Pick To Head Investigation of Wall Street Crime

Simon Johnson: Breakthrough: Eric Schneiderman To Chair Mortgage Crisis Unit

As reported first in the Huffington Post, President Obama is creating “a special unit to investigate misconduct and illegalities that contributed to both the financial collapse and the mortgage crisis”. This will be chaired by Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general.

For more background on why this makes sense and could represent a major policy breakthrough, please see this column

Common Dreams via Undernews: Is Obama’s mortgage “investigation” a fraud?

In last night’s State of the Union speech President Obama announced the creation of a committee to investigate “the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages.”

The ‘investigation’ announcement came just as a bank-friendly ‘settlement’ is about to be announced by the state attorney generals. Reports of the settlement talks, the ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup and Ally Financial Inc — would provide $20 billion to $25 billion of ‘relief’ to homeowners in exchange for being exempted from lawsuits for improper foreclosures and abuses in mortgage loans.

The findings of the new ‘investigation’ would come after the settlement gives the banks a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Matt Taibbi wrote on the proposed settlement: “The current proposed deal is a huge giveaway to the banks, a major shafting to most of the investors, and would probably give homeowners either next to nothing or some cosmetic reward, i.e. a little bit of principal forgiveness, counseling, etc. If the Obama administration was serious about helping actual human beings through this settlement, then it would be fighting for homeowners to get the same bailout the banks would get. If the banks are getting a trillion or more dollars of legal immunity, why shouldn’t homeowners get that much debt forgiveness? Or, half that much? A quarter?”

Democratic state attorneys general and Obama administration officials met on Monday in Chicago to discuss the terms of the settlement. An announcement on the deal is expected any day. .. .

•Global Economic Analysis Blog: Is Proposed Aid to Homeowners A Bailout?

Obama Proposes Mortgage Bailouts, Handouts, Copouts Exactly One Paragraph After Stating “Top to Bottom: No Bailouts, No Handouts, and No Copouts”; How the Taxpayer Ripoff Works

Inquiring minds are reading the complete text of President Obama’s State of the Union Address to see what distortions, lies, and hypocrisy it contains. ??I found a nice Orwellian set of paragraphs smack in the middle of his speech.
And while Government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.

That’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.

Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.
Top to Bottom: More Bailouts, More Handouts, More Copouts

While reading the first paragraph above I knew without a doubt a huge bailout proposal was coming up.

Sure enough, the very next paragraph contained a massive bailout proposal and in more ways than is readily apparent at first glance. For starters “responsible homeowners” don’t need mortgage relief. Secondly, $300 a month is a lot of dough so I would like to see an accounting.

Finally, and most importantly, every loan that is refinanced will be paid off in full. Thus, any bank, hedge fund, mortgage provider, or GSE that is paid off on a nonperforming loan will be immediately made whole.

This is a massive backdoor bailout of banks, mortgage companies, hedge funds, foreign banks, and anyone else holding mortgage related garbage.

In case you were wondering about the big rally in bank shares this year, this proposal just might have something to do with it.

The Orwellian irony of it all comes in the third paragraph with Obama’s bald-faced lie “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.”

How the Taxpayer Ripoff Works

The New York Times explains the ripoff in President to Offer Way for Easing Home Debt
The White House plans to propose legislation that could allow a few million homeowners to reduce monthly mortgage payments by refinancing their current loans into new ones guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration.

The program would broaden the availability of government-backed mortgages to include many borrowers whose loans are held by private companies and who have been unable to persuade those lenders to reduce their interest rates. Existing federal programs focus mostly on borrowers whose loans are owned by the government.

The new program will be directed at people whose mortgage debts exceed the value of their homes, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details have not yet been finalized. The official estimated that the program could benefit two million to three million homeowners who have loans that are not guaranteed by the government, and that the program’s cost would not exceed $10 billion.
$10 Billion?! Really?

The proposal as outlined rates to take every “responsible” underwater mortgage held by banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, hedge funds, foreign banks, and pension plans, and transfer all of them to the FHA. The idea this will only cost $10 billion is absurd.

The “small fees on the largest financial institutions” are absolutely guaranteed to not cover the cost of this monstrous proposal. Indeed there is something in Obama’s proposal for everyone except “responsible citizens”.

“Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day” will be royally screwed by Obama’s proposition in the form of higher taxes down the road.

•Ellen Brown, “Why All the Robo-signing? Shining a Light on the Shadow Banking System”

•Geithner Says Geithner Will Go (Bloomberg via CreditWritedowns)

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner spoke to Bloomberg Television’s Trish Regan today and said that President Obama is “not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident. I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury…Something else for me.”

The Wars

CLG: United Nations human rights official criticized Iraq on Tuesday for carrying out a large number of executions, including 34 on a single day last week, and voiced concern about due process and the fairness of trials. “Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, in a statement referring to executions carried out on January 19. At least 63 people are believed to have been executed since mid-November in Iraq, where the death penalty can be imposed for some 48 crimes including a number related to non-fatal crimes such as damage to public property, Pillay said.

Rumor: US Denies Plans to Divide Afghanistan

Ambassador Ryan Crocker said in a statement that a “free and independent media plays a vital role in any democracy” and that Afghanistan’s media and the Afghan government spokespersons were “important elements in our close bilateral relationship.”

But he then went on to say that, “rumors that the United States has a plan to divide Afghanistan or change its form of government are, frankly speaking, lies that dishonor the sacrifice of more than 1,800 American service members who have died in the cause of a unified Afghanistan, governed by its Constitution.”

Fluent: ‘Egypt anniversary demonstrators remain in Tahrir Square’

Soros on Crisis in Europe

Here’s George Soros’s essay in the forthcoming edition of the New York Review of Books: . The essay is adapted from a speech he delivered at the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos today.

My new book, Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States, tries to explain and, to the extent possible, predict the outcome of the euro crisis. It follows the same pattern as my other books: it contains an updated version of my conceptual approach and the application of that approach to a particular situation, and it presents a real-time experiment to test the validity of my interpretation. Its account is not complete because the crisis is still ongoing.
We remain in the acute phase of the crisis; the prospect of a meltdown of the global financial system has not been removed. In my book, I proposed a plan that would bring immediate relief to global financial markets but it has not been adopted.

Finally–a profile of Gingrich’s Funder

The Boston Globe reports he is under federal investigation and is an “Israeli hardliner.”

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Calls for Resignation of NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly

ICNA Condemns NYPD Screening of Islamophobic Film in Training Sessions

New York, NY – January 25, 2012: The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), one of the nation’s leading Muslim organizations, called for the resignation of Commissioner Ray Kelly today as new information was released regarding the showing of a blatantly Islamophobic film, “The Third Jihad,” during police training sessions.

According to The New York Times, the film depicts a covert jihad that seeks to destroy and conquer the Western world. According to ICNA, this blatantly bigoted attack on Islam will only fuel hatred and Islamophobia.

The President of ICNA, Zahid H. Bukhari, stated, “We call on Mayor Bloomberg to either fire Commissioner Kelly or ask for his resignation. The NYPD under Kelly’s leadership has allowed a blatantly racist, Islamophobic film to be used to train over 1,489 police officers. This film was also produced by individuals and groups with ties to anti-Muslim hate groups. This type of clandestine behavior by the NYPD not only violates the civil liberties and civil rights of Muslim Americans but calls into question the integrity of a police force that is sworn to protect thousands of law abiding Muslim Americans and other ethnic communities who live in New York City.”

According to The New York Times, the film was funded by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group that shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. After documents were released regarding the NYPD spying on Muslim communities, the use of this video for training purposes by the NYPD does not come as a shock. According to documents released by the Freedom of Information Law, “The Third Jihad”, which includes an interview with Commissioner Kelly, was shown “on a continuous loop for between three months and one year of training.” ICNA would like to commend both The Brennan Center for its persistent investigation and The New York Times for getting the truth out.

More:

CAIR: Docs Reveal 1500 NYPD Officers Viewed Anti-Muslim Film

Muslim civil rights group asks department for plan to counter misinformation

(NEW YORK, N.Y., 1/24/12) — The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today called on the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to offer a concrete plan to help counter the misinformation about Islam and Muslims provided to almost 1500 officers through the screening of The Third Jihad, a notorious anti-Muslim propaganda film.

CAIR-NY is also asking for a review of all NYDP training on Islam and for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to meet with Muslim community leaders and representatives of other minority and civil liberties groups to discuss allegations of anti-Muslim bias in the department.

The New York Times reports today that, despite NYPD denials last year, the propaganda film was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department. According to the films narrator, the true agenda of much of Islam in America is to infiltrate and dominate America. . .This is the war you dont know about.

Elizabeth Warren Talks With Jon Stewart on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive – Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 1

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

EWallStreeter: $100 Billion Question: What Should Apple Do With Its Cash?

When Apple reported its blowout financial results this week, it disclosed an amazing fact: The company is now sitting on $97.6 billion in cash. So what will the tech juggernaut do with all of that money? Company executives were tight-lipped on the post-earnings conference call, saying only that they were “actively” considering alternatives…..

•Related: Apple is announcing a new IPhone 5 for this summer.

Occupy Introduces New Tactic: Occupy Town Square

“Occupy Wall Street is four months old. We don’t live in a park anymore, but we’re still here, and we’re still fighting for economic justice. Now, OWS is coming to a neighborhood near you. Over the next few months, mobile, daytime occupations, called Occupy Town Squares, will be held in parks and other public spaces, indoor and outdoor, around New York City. For a few hours a week, these events will recreate the essence of the Zuccotti Park Occupation. There will be info tables, teach-ins, trainings, and political discussions. Whether you consider yourself a supporter of the movement or not, we want to meet you: come share your ideas and stories, learn about the movement, argue with us, debate with us, collaborate with us. If you’re already active in OWS, this is a chance to exchange information, to coordinate between working groups, and to get to know our brothers and sisters in the movement.

The first Occupy Town Square is THIS Sunday, January 29, from 11:00am-5:00pm in Washington Square Park. Join us!

•Adbusters: Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.
And so will we.

On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.

•Philly Blog: Ex-Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Davis Resolves Occupy Wall Street Arrest

•Protest in Australia: Prime Minister Has To Be Rescued

Australian PM Julia Gillard and leader of the opposition Tony Abbott had to be rescued after becoming trapped by an angry protest, local media reports.

About 50 police escorted the pair from Canberra’s Lobby restaurant after it was surrounded by some 200 supporters of the city’s Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

Mr Abbott had reportedly angered them by suggesting it was time for the camp – marking its 40th year – to come down.

•Song: People of the World Unite by Mr. Biscuit

Andy Borowitz: Down With Facts

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In what some critics are calling the most radial tactic ever employed in a State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama risked alienating congressional Republicans last night by repeatedly using facts.

Mr. Obama stirred controversy throughout the speech with his relentless references to facts, data, and things that have actually happened, all long considered the third rail of American politics.

As the President made reference to tax rates and unemployment numbers, as well as sixteen separate mentions of Osama bin Laden, congressional Republicans’ blood began to boil.

After the speech, a furious Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “It’s been a longstanding tradition in our politics not to use facts in a State of the Union Address, a tradition the President chose to ignore in an outrageous way tonight. I won’t stand for it and the American people won’t stand for it.”

“We want to work with the President for the good of the American people,” added House Speaker John Boehner. “But he’s going to have to take facts off the table. That’s a deal-breaker for us.”

•LRB: See The Diego Rivera Murals at the Museum of Modern Art

Artists in Pittsburgh Show Consider Recent Wars
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