Sunday, January 10, 2010
LET THE BONUS RIOT BEGIN
Saturday, January 9, 2010
HE'LL BE BACK
TIMMY'S FROM PLANET REMULAK
In what alternative universe do gamblers get paid 100 cents on the dollar for bets gone awry? Only in a universe regulated by Tim Geithner and the other cronies at the Federal Reserve and United States Treasury. Wall Street Cheat Sheet
Answer: Tell us Valdar, is it true that on Earth counterparties of giant bankrupt derivative hulks get paid 100 cents on the dolllar?
Answer: Tell us Valdar, is it true that on Earth counterparties of giant bankrupt derivative hulks get paid 100 cents on the dolllar?
Friday, January 8, 2010
FECAL FOUNTAINS
Nearly half of the 90 beverages from soda fountain machines in one area in Virginia tested positive for coliform bacteria -- which could indicate possible fecal contamination, according to a study published in the January issue of International Journal of Food Microbiology.
WB7: Guess whats in the beer tap.
SQUID BUSTER?
Hank Greenberg, as we sit in his Park Avenue office, is telling me how to do my job, saying reporters need to get to "connect the dots" between the events that preceded and followed the government bailout of AIG, the insurance company he built into a global giant.
In particular, they need to get to the bottom of the part played by the investment bank of Goldman Squid. He waves a sheaf of press reports from the New York Times, Banzai7 News Blog, Washington Post and McClatchy papers about the firm's doings before and during the subprime meltdown. "We're dealing with a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces are not in the box. Bit by bit, we're cutting away the tentacles. The pieces are failing into place and the giant cephapod creature on the face of the puzzle is not a pretty picture."
Let me get this straight. Is Mr. Greenberg saying the machinations of Goldman Squid were responsible for the disastrous failure of AIG amid the recent financial crisis? "Well, it certainly wouldn't be difficult to come to that conclusion."
Read the rest here.
GEITHNER'S AIG HEMORRHOIDS
As a result of this transaction, the AIGFP counterparties received 100 percent of the par value of the Multi-Sector CDOs sold and the related CDS have been terminated. ML III has now acquired approximately $[62.1] billion in par amount of Multi-Sector CDOs and has aggregate liabilities resulting from its borrowings from the NY fed of approximately $[___] billion.
So much for the American model of disclosure transparency. The calls for Geithner's head are getting louder. Looks like Timmy's itch isn't going to go away any time soon.
OFFICE FOR LET
Rents for commercial office space fell faster over the past two years than in any such period in the last half century, The New York Times’s Christine Haughney writes.
Holy cow!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
CONNECT THE DOTS
WB7: Perhaps we could use a little more "thinking outside of the box" in addition to relearning how to "connect the dots".
OBAMA SINGS: CONNECT THE DOTS
(Connect the Dots, Spill the Canvas)
WilliamBanzai7
If your head hurts from all this terrorism stuff,
then lets tend to it, with an intelligent touch.
If you just don't feel safe and secure today,
then we'll perform a counter terrorist mouth to mouth until everything's okay.
Don't you just love the feeling when loose lips sink enemy ships.
Don't you just love the desire of getting rid of them,
I can tell you do.
We think we know all their favorite spots,
and starting now we will "connect the dots".
If your feelng wound up and up tight,
then we will loosen up the knots of fear until it feels alright.
If your ears just ache from hearing of security lapses at home and abroad,
then we'll supply the remedy in the melodies we sing.
Don't you just love the feeling when loose lips sink enemy ships.
Don't you just love the desire of getting rid of them,
I can tell you do.
We think we know all their favorite spots,
and starting now we will "connect the dots".
OBAMA SINGS: CONNECT THE DOTS
(Connect the Dots, Spill the Canvas)
WilliamBanzai7
If your head hurts from all this terrorism stuff,
then lets tend to it, with an intelligent touch.
If you just don't feel safe and secure today,
then we'll perform a counter terrorist mouth to mouth until everything's okay.
Don't you just love the feeling when loose lips sink enemy ships.
Don't you just love the desire of getting rid of them,
I can tell you do.
We think we know all their favorite spots,
and starting now we will "connect the dots".
If your feelng wound up and up tight,
then we will loosen up the knots of fear until it feels alright.
If your ears just ache from hearing of security lapses at home and abroad,
then we'll supply the remedy in the melodies we sing.
Don't you just love the feeling when loose lips sink enemy ships.
Don't you just love the desire of getting rid of them,
I can tell you do.
We think we know all their favorite spots,
and starting now we will "connect the dots".
CONNECT THE NEURONS
Professor Henry Markram, a doctor-turned-computer engineer, announced that his team would create the world's first artificial conscious and intelligent mind by 2018.
And that is exactly what he is doing.
On the shore of Lake Geneva, this brilliant, eccentric scientist is building an artificial mind. A Swiss - it could only be Swiss - precision- engineered mind, made of silicon, gold and copper.
The end result will be an intelligence analyst, if we can call it that, which its maker believes within a decade may be able to connect the dots."
INTERNET DASHBOARD
The NYT reports that technology giants like Intel and Google are turning their attention from the desktop to the dashboard, hoping to bring the power of the PC to the car. They see vast opportunity for profit in working with automakers to create the next generation of irresistible devices.
ATTENTION READERS: BANZAI7 RECOMMENDS THAT YOU DO NOT READ THIS BLOG WHILE DRIVING AT SPEEDS EXCEEDING 50 MPH, IN CITY TRAFFIC, UNDER THE INFLUENCE OR ATTEMPTING CARNAL ACTIVITIES.
TIMMY'S SECRET BARGAINS
A draft of a
TSA WAS IN HOT PURSUIT
BANZAI7 NEWS--Officials from the Transport Security Administration discovered Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's name on the Customs and Border Protection database after he boarded his Northwest flight in Amsterdam and were waiting to question him upon landing in Detroit, according to senior law enforcement officials.
The disclosure appears to show US intelligence was close to uncovering the terrorist plot, despite the barrage of criticism it has come under since Abdulmutallab, 23, failed to detonate a bomb aboard a Northwest airliner on Christmas Day.
“Information sharing does not appear to have contributed to this intelligence failure; relevant all-sources analysts as well as watchlisting personnel who needed this information were not preventing from accessing it,” the White House noted in its review of the incident. “Information technology within the CT [counterterrorism] community did not sufficiently enable the correlation of data that would have enable analysts to highlight the relevant threat information.”
WB7: How about a system that identifies and questions a threat before he boards the plane? Is this too much to expect? What kind of computers do these Customs and Border people use?
The disclosure appears to show US intelligence was close to uncovering the terrorist plot, despite the barrage of criticism it has come under since Abdulmutallab, 23, failed to detonate a bomb aboard a Northwest airliner on Christmas Day.
“Information sharing does not appear to have contributed to this intelligence failure; relevant all-sources analysts as well as watchlisting personnel who needed this information were not preventing from accessing it,” the White House noted in its review of the incident. “Information technology within the CT [counterterrorism] community did not sufficiently enable the correlation of data that would have enable analysts to highlight the relevant threat information.”
WB7: How about a system that identifies and questions a threat before he boards the plane? Is this too much to expect? What kind of computers do these Customs and Border people use?
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
WHY PITY THE BANKER DEGENERATE
WHY PITY THE BANKER DEGENERATE
(Why Pity the Poor Immigrant, Bob Dylan)
WilliamBanzai7
Why pity the banker degenerate
Who wishes he could take everyone else's cash home,
Who uses all his power like a financial Evil Knievel
And in the end always gets the golden bone.
That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with ev'ry breath,
Who passionately hates the common man
And likewise, fears his death.
Why pity the banker degenerate
Whose strength is spent in vain,
Whose heaven is like Ironsides,
Whose tears are like rain,
Who eats but is not satisfied,
Who hears but does not see,
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on thee.
Why pity the banker degenerate
Who tramples through the mud,
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood,
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass.
Why pity the banker degenerate
When his gladness comes to pass.
THE FUTURE OF INVESTMENT BANKING
BANZAI7 NEWS--In the bank's first report on the European banking sector under the Barclays Capital brand, its analysts took a negative views on the investment banking industry.
This comes after a 15-month period in which the U.K. bank has made a big push of its own in the sector since buying Lehman Brothers' North American operations in 2008.
Barclays' analysts said the corporate and investment banking industry in Europe will be 20% less profitable by the end of 2010 and is likely to a record a further 4% decline in profits in 2011, as fixed-income revenues fall on the back of tighter spreads and lower volumes.
Corporate and investment banking divisions were among the largest beneficiaries of the market recovery last year, however Barclays' analysts said that if the economic recovery persists "the baton" will pass to retail and commercial banking, which will do better in a higher interest rate environment.
WB7: Perhaps they would be more profitable if they scaled back their pay.
WB7: Perhaps they would be more profitable if they scaled back their pay.
DOUCHE BAG LIFER
BANZAI7 NEWS-- In a melancholy NYT profile of Sandy Weill over the weekend, the former CEO and chair of Citigroup admitted to some errors of management during his tenure at the mega-bank, but spurned claims that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act -- which erased key banking regulations after heavy lobbying by Weill -- was to blame for Citi's woes.
In fact, as the NYT points out, Weill is still so staunchly in favor of the repeal that he displays a wooden trophy of sorts in his office. (In the banking equivalent of a stuffed lion's head mounted on the wall, the plaque reads "Shatterer Of Glass-Steagall.") And, appearances be damned, Weil apparently was not compelled to take this gloating piece of memorabilia down before being visited by a reporter.
Sandy Weill, Douche Bag for Life:
In fact, as the NYT points out, Weill is still so staunchly in favor of the repeal that he displays a wooden trophy of sorts in his office. (In the banking equivalent of a stuffed lion's head mounted on the wall, the plaque reads "Shatterer Of Glass-Steagall.") And, appearances be damned, Weil apparently was not compelled to take this gloating piece of memorabilia down before being visited by a reporter.
Sandy Weill, Douche Bag for Life:
MUSICAL SEAT
In most any other state, that would be deemed outrageous. But the particular Senate seat in question, the one now held by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, has a history of being held by people who could be called New Yorkers by convenience — or less charitably, carpetbaggers. Three of her five immediate predecessors in that seat fit the description.
WB7: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a piano player, is also considering a run for the seat.
FINANCIAL TOILET PAPER
There’s an important angle to this story not addressed in Brill’s article. If top AIG executives believed the common stock was worthless, why did the company keep issuing financial statements that still showed billions of dollars of common shareholder equity? If the Securities and Exchange Commission isn’t digging into this question already, it should be. So should AIG’s outside auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
“Worthless” is the word Anastasia Kelly, AIG’s general counsel and vice chairman at the time, used during the company’s compensation negotiations, according to Feinberg. We also learned from Brill’s article that Federal Reserve Bank of New York officials agreed with AIG’s position, after the Treasury Department told Feinberg to consult with them."
"The latest twist in the AIG saga provides a reminder of one of the fundamental flaws in the government’s bailout efforts. Rather than insisting that failing banks and insurance companies come clean about the rot on their balance sheets as a condition of accepting taxpayer money, the government plied them with cash first and let them keep their true financial condition hidden."
See the rest here: Link
WB7: Anastasia Kelly, recently resigned over government-imposed pay limits. She will reportedly collect $3.8 million in severance.
Kelly resigned for “good reason” after her salary was cut, AIG said in a statement.
Good reason indeed.
SLOVAK UNDA-BOMBERS
As part of a training exercise, Slovakian police hid used underpants in unsuspecting travellers' luggage at the country's main airport.
They found most of it, but a batch of soiled Bjorn Borgs still managed to end up on a Dublin-bound Danube Wings plane, leading to a police raid and the temporary arrest of an unwitting smuggler.
UNDA-BOMBER VISA REVOKED
In a related development, the Transportation Security Agency announced that two additional questions have been added to the routine passenger security queries at airport check in counters: Did you pack your own underwear? Are you on any terrorist watch lists?
WELL READ DOG
Most dogs can recognise about 15 commands. Betsy's skills were recorded as part of the BBC's science programme Horizon. It examined the increase in scientific investigations into canines, their unique relationships with people, and how they are helping to identify cutting edge political issues.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
HOT TUNA
EXPLOSIVE BOO BOO
Yogi Bear, who had been visiting family in the central California city of Bakersfield, was allowed to return home to Jellystone National Park.
"The substances in the bottles did turn out to be honey. They tested negative for all explosives and narcotics. It is nothing but honey. Looks like they made a BooBoo." Ranger Smith told Reuters.
UGLY DRONE FLYING AMERICANS
U.S. spies in Afghanistan spend too much time focusing on enemy groups and tactics and not enough on trying to understand Afghanistan's culture, people and networks, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn wrote in a report published Monday.
The American intelligence community is "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers," Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn wrote in a report published Monday.
WB7: There is little need for cultural intelligence when your primary objective is planning drone bombing missions.
NUT JOB HACKED
The official Web site of Iran’s president, I'm-a-Nut-Job, has been attacked by hackers.
People trying to access it last night were redirected to this page.
The image is now incorporated into the activities section of the website.
People trying to access it last night were redirected to this page.
The image is now incorporated into the activities section of the website.
LOBBYING LOBOTOMY
IMF researchers have discovered that from 2000 to 2007, lenders who lobbied most strongly on mortgage-related legislation made more dangerous mortgage loans than those who lobbied less.
The researchers said their results led them to believe that lobbying may have been linked to lenders expecting or even getting special treatment from policymakers, causing them to engage in riskier lending behaviour.
"Using detailed information on lobbying and mortgage lending activities, we find that lenders lobbying more on issues related to mortgage lending (i) had higher loan-to-income ratios, (ii) securitized more intensively, and (iii) had faster growing portfolios. Ex-post, delinquency rates are higher in areas where lobbyist' lending grew faster and they experienced negative abnormal stock returns during key crisis events."
Monday, January 4, 2010
BANKSTERS, MOVIE STARS AND PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES
BANZAI7 NEWS--Bill George, Professor of Management at Harvard Business School and a Goldman board member compares bank talent to movie stars and professional wrestlers:
"The shareholder value is made up in people and you need the people there to do the con job.
"If you don’t pay them for their acting performance, you’ll lose them. It's much like professional wrestlers and movie stars."
WB7: Like movie stars they invite us to join them in a world of complete fantasy and like pro wrestlers, they are experts at pretending the game is not rigged.
SWINGING DUBAI DICK OPENS
BANZAI7 NEWS--Dubai renamed the world’s tallest Phallus in honor of the ruler of Abu Dhabi less than a month after receiving a $10 billion "naming rights" bailout payment from the neighboring emirate that defused a financial crisis.
The 200-story Burj Khalifa, or Khalifa Dick, was known until yesterday as Burj Babel.
Analysts are wondering if the Dubai Phallus can somehow be mated with New Yorks CITI Field.
TIME WARNER/AOL BEATS AIG
Timothy Geithner remarked: "Whew, that coulda been me!"
BERNANKE: IT WASN'T ME
Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa commented: "If we can't nail John Gotti Jr. how can we expect to nail this guy Bernanke?"
GOTHAM TOURIST MECCA
eat Chinese food,
and apply for admission at Columbia University and NYU,
However, despite its Chinese popularity, tourism in the city dropped by 4 percent last year. Just over 45 million Chinese people visited the the Big Apple in 2009, a smaller drop-off than the 10 percent decline officials had predicted. The city expects a significant increase in domestic tourists this year following an announcement that the Coney Island attraction Shoot the Freak will be changing its theme to Shoot the Wall Street Geek.
AIRPORT SECURITY TIGHTENED
GOLDMAN ON THE MOVE?
BANZAI7 NEWS--Goldman Sachs is understood to be considering its options in the wake of the UK's windfall tax on bankers' bonuses, a new 50pc top income tax rate, and increased banking regulations.
The world's most powerful investment bank has asked an internal team to examine various strategies, including whole divisions being uprooted and taken on Liberian tankers to Monrovia.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said: We would explicitly welcome Goldman Sachs to Monrovia. What can be done be done with tankers can almost certainly be accomplished with bankers.
The world's most powerful investment bank has asked an internal team to examine various strategies, including whole divisions being uprooted and taken on Liberian tankers to Monrovia.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
SECRET MOON BASE DISCOVERED
The vertical hole, in the Tora Bora region on the moon's back side, is 213 feet wide and is estimated to be more than 260 feet deep, according to findings published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
More important, the scientists say, the camel hole is protected from the moon's harsh temperatures and meteorite strikes by a thin sheet of lava. That makes the tube a good candidate for possible inhabitation by Mooning Space Jihadis the article says.
JOCK STRAP JIHADIS AND UNDA-BOMBERS
America's new challenge. If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we can catch a mooning Jihadi.
THE RETURN OF DOCTOR DOOM
QUESTION: How many American intelligence analysts does it take to catch a Nigerian unda-bomber?
ANSWER: Of course I know how stupid they are, we hired them and trained them! Then we sent the best and brightest to work for Blackwater!!!!!!
ONE TOURIST VISA PLEASE
"If we can't catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his… underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the US embassy in Nigeria, a traveller whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn't check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in al-Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?"
Maureen Dowd, NY Times
This is who the US State Department issues multiple entry tourist visas to.
Maureen Dowd, NY Times
This is who the US State Department issues multiple entry tourist visas to.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
2009 AND THE "TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS"
"We may well call it 'the tragedy of the commons,' using the word 'tragedy' as the philosopher Whitehead used it: 'The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.'"
Garrett Hardin
Have you heard the expression: 'Tragedy of the Commons?
"The tragedy of the commons refers to a dilemma described in an influential article by that name written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968. The article describes a situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen." [ Source: Wikipedia]
"Central to Hardin's article is an example (first sketched in an 1833 pamphlet by William Forster Lloyd), of a hypothetical and simplified situation based on medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's example, it is in each herder's interest to put the next (and succeeding) cows he acquires onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the common is exceeded and it is temporarily or permanently damaged for all as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the common will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all."
Now think about the three hollow legislative themes of 2009: healthcare reform, the fight against global warming and financial regulatory reform. Greedy medical insurers, unsavory banksters and energy gluttons, these are the modern day herders working to ensure that "the commons will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all."
Garrett Hardin
Have you heard the expression: 'Tragedy of the Commons?
"The tragedy of the commons refers to a dilemma described in an influential article by that name written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968. The article describes a situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen." [ Source: Wikipedia]
"Central to Hardin's article is an example (first sketched in an 1833 pamphlet by William Forster Lloyd), of a hypothetical and simplified situation based on medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's example, it is in each herder's interest to put the next (and succeeding) cows he acquires onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the common is exceeded and it is temporarily or permanently damaged for all as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the common will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all."
Now think about the three hollow legislative themes of 2009: healthcare reform, the fight against global warming and financial regulatory reform. Greedy medical insurers, unsavory banksters and energy gluttons, these are the modern day herders working to ensure that "the commons will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all."
HAPPY NEW DECADE
WB7: Wondering how Wall Street racked up record numbers during this same period? Read this HAPPY NEW YEAR LINK
HAPPY NEW DECADE FROM WILLIAM BANZAI7
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