This time it’s a Texas banker (yeah, what are the odds?)

Hoping to halt what it called “a fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world,” the Securities and Exchange Commission charged billionaire R. Allen Stanford and other executives at his massive financial services company, Stanford Financial Group, with operating a multibillion-dollar fraudulent investment scheme.

In a complaint filed early Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Dallas, the SEC alleged Antigua-based Stanford International Bank (SIB) fabricated investment returns in order to market and sell high-yielding certificates of deposits.

The complaint charged SIB with selling approximately $8 billion of CDs to investors by promising improbable and unsubstantiated interest rates.

You kind of wonder what it’s going to take to get Republicans espousing “free-market” solutions to admit that the “market” has not functioned as such. It’s apparently been a non-stop, gigantic crime wave by people using offshore accounts and white collar trickery instead of guns and knives.

The moral decay in our society is widespread and palpable, and it’s not confined to one party. But there is one party that is more intensely and palpably rotten than the other, and most regular Americans know that.

Here’s an interesting article from Financial Week that suggests existing law would allow for a faster fix of the insolvent banking system:

The law, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act, was signed into law in 1991. In an interview with Financial Week, Bob Eisenbeis, a former research director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said the FDICIA contains more than enough tools for regulators to help stem the current financial crisis.

If regulators had applied FDICIA’s provisions once the solvency of major banks was first called into question, Mr. Eisenbeis said, many would already have been taken over by Uncle Sam.

That would mean that their good assets would have been separated from their bad and sold off to healthy institutions or other investors.

This, he claims, would have gone a long way toward solving the credit crisis.

The article quotes a blog post made by at The Big Picture by a financial consultant named Christopher Whalen:

“When the Q1 numbers for the financials come out, the children’s hour in DC will end,” Mr. Whalen wrote in a note posted on the blog, The Big Picture. “The markets will react and Washington will finally be forced to have an adult conversation with the global community as to how much we haircut the bondholders.”

Yes, reading and discussing economic and financial stuff gets old, but to regular citizens it sure appears we are still headed off a cliff in many ways. The stimulus plan is a start, of course, but fixing the financial system is now paramount.

If I understand all this, the argument is that the Paulson-Geithner approach has us in a holding pattern. If existing law can be applied as Eisenbeis claims, it would seem to warrant consideration so that we can get on with things. Whatever name people wish to use can be affixed to the action–temporary nationalization, receivership, or my personal suggestion of “restructuring awards,” we need to just do it. The longer uncertainty prevails, the worse things will get.

Props to The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter

The frog bastards:

In Paris, hot meals are prepared on the premises of each of the city’s 270 public day care facilities. Nothing is mass produced, ingredients are more often fresh than frozen, and the chefs try to use organic products when they can. And the cost of the food is not exorbitant — only about $2 per meal per child.

At La Margeride day care, delicious smells waft out of the kitchen. By 9 a.m., the preparation of lunch is well under way. Chefs Elizabeth Morel and Martine Belaud have been happily working together for the past 14 years.

Literally hell on earth. Fresh foods, people working proudly in food preparation for over a decade, kids learning to eat healthy. No wonder conservatives hate the French.

It would be so much better if they fed their kids salmonella-laced frozen peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

So yesterday was the ten year anniversary of the not guilty verdict for Bill Clinton at his Senate impeachment trial.

Shortly after I called Slade Gorton’s office that day in early 1999 to promise that Gorton would be defeated for voting to convict, some pussy called my phone and left a message pretending to be from the IRS, threatening me with an audit. I knew it was bullshit because the stupid fuck sounded like some young dumb fascist idiot. You know, a typical Republican.

Anyhow, I never could find out who it was, but to all the former Slade Gorton staffers out there, fuck you. Journalists may have to play pretend, but regular people know and remember how we were treated. Again, fuck you, you stupid Slade Gorton staffer. Who’s laughing now?

Oh wait, I do remember who called me. But I’ll just keep that to myself for now.

And Fuck Bi-partisanshit. I swear to God, the next time a journalist starts in about “bi-partisanship” I’m going to tear my lush, luxurious head of hair out. There is no bi-partisanship with these people, they are insane and their supposedly reasonable (“Moderate!”) leaders and workers have been insane for a very long time.

People who work for Congress should not call constituents and threaten them with retaliation from the IRS. That’s fascist bullshit, and the fact that anyone in the cesspool would find it acceptable kind of tells you what kind of sick minds we are dealing with. This kind of shit pre-dated Bush the Younger.

To bring it up to the present day, Obama can give good press conference all he wants. It’s awesome and he even inspires a cynic like me. But his administration needs to fully understand that the Republican Party is composed of political sociopaths, and deal with them accordingly.

So according to this nice internet astrology person, on Valentine’s Day the Moon Will Really Be in the Seventh House, and Jupiter Will Align With Mars!

Valentine’s Day 2009 is the actual Dawning of the Age of Aquarius. I shit you not. The mind’s true liberation, etc.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3I1y3jHgxA[/youtube]

I must say that as an Aquarian who is married to a woman born on the same day of the same year, albeit a thousand miles apart, I am kind of enthused about this.

Plus I had this song burned into my brain as a child riding around the suburbs in a white and red AMC Gremlin with pushbutton AM radio.

Good times.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-BIPARTISANHAPPYLAND, has abruptly withdrawn his kind offer to be Secretary of Commerce, after lobbying really really hard for the job.

Cable tee-vee says Gweggy not happy wid stwimulus, taking banky and going home.

Good riddance.

Another victory for bipartisanship!

Housing prices continued to drop late last year and foreclosures are still a very troubling problem. From Bloomberg:

Home prices dropped the most on record in the fourth quarter as foreclosures dragged down values and the recession pushed buyers out of the market.

The median price of a U.S. home declined 12 percent from a year earlier and sales of properties with mortgages in default accounted for 45 percent of all transactions, the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors said today. Prices declined in almost nine out of every 10 cities.

The Columbian gives us a sense of the situation in Washington state:

Clark County received the second-highest foreclosure ranking out of Washington’s 39 counties. One in every 400 households were in some stage of foreclosure countywide last month, RealtyTrac said.

In January, Pierce County ranked No. 1, with one in every 393 housing units in foreclosure in January. King County ranked No. 6, with one in every 795 homes affected by foreclosure. Statewide, one in every 874 households was in foreclosure last month.

Both articles give the sense that job losses are now playing a bigger role in foreclosures, underscoring the need for the stimulus package, as imperfect as it may be. Whether it can do what it is intended to do, namely stop a spreading and worsening economic disaster, is an open question.

Behind all the statistics are real people, of course. You probably talk to friends and neighbors who report job cuts at their employer, or at the very least severe belt-tightening. The irony, of course, is that regular folks then start clamping down on their own personal spending, exacerbating the troubles. The fear becomes self-fulfilling.

It’s not enough to urge people to spend money, there has to be a sense in the country that we are turning the corner. The stimulus package is part of that, but the other big part is dealing with Big Shitpile. It’s understandable that the new administration is still working on that, but “setting piles of money on fire,” as Atrios calls it, does little to inspire confidence and end fear.

Somehow, the administration has to come up with a workable plan to re-organize the financial sector. If we can’t call it “nationalization” because that’s too scary and pinko, fine. Call it a “restructuring award” and get on with it.

Robert Reich has some limited praise for the Geithner plan, but also some worries. After pointing out that the Federal Reserve has committed $2.5 trillion, yet nobody knows exactly what the heck they are doing, he observes:

In other words, Geithner and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke continue to do pretty much what Hank Paulson and Bernanke did: They hide much of the true costs and risks to taxpayers of repairing the banking system. Those risks and costs should be put on the people who made risky bets on the banks in the first place – namely bank shareholders and creditors. Shareholders of the most troubled banks should be wiped out entirely. Bank creditors- except depositors – should take major hits. And top executives who were responsible should be canned. But Geithner and Bernanke don’t want to take these steps for fear of spooking the Street. They think it’s safer to put the costs and risks on taxpayers — especially in ways they can’t see.

Oh boy. I cannot even begin to fathom the political reaction in this country if the Fed had to, in effect, be bailed out because of this.

May you live in interesting times.

Compromise.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Key US lawmakers agreed Wednesday on an economic revival plan of some 800 billion dollars and prepared to vote as early as Thursday to send the package to President Barack Obama, a top senator said.

As we learn more details, it will be interesting to see how much was put back for the wee kiddies. Apparently we have to destroy their schools to save them from the horrors of massive public debt, now that the money is being used to actually help people instead of blow things up.

Still, the histrionics from some Repubs is pretty hilarious. What’s actually horrifying to Americans is fat cats on Wall Street and in D.C. continuing to enrich themselves while the economy implodes. Debt is a long-term problem, but when the house is on fire worrying about the water bill is insanity. But then, Republicans always seem to focus on the wrong thing, it’s congenital with them.

Look over there! It’s a Fairness Doctrine! Ooga-booga!

UPDATE 2:21 PM PST– Or maybe the deal isn’t done?

From Seattle Weekly:

According to L&I, a glitch in its computer coding resulted in the agency refunding $10 million to $15 million more per year to employers and groups that participate in the so-called Retrospective Rating program for workers’ comp insurance. That is, they were getting a bigger refund on their premiums than their actual injured-worker claims would have justified.

It’s impossible to say, without knowing many more details, how much the BIAW might have benefited from this overpayment. But the builders’ lobby is the biggest participant in the “retro” program and uses the refund money to fund its political machine. The fact that government “incompetence” has, for years now, been helping the BIAW underwrite its war on government is either fitting or ironic, it’s hard to know which.

When I think back to all the distorted attack ads and the hysterical, right wing baloney the BIAW has pumped out over the years, it makes me want to puke. Turns out they had a good thing going, and they didn’t have the good sense to shut up and enjoy it.

Maybe now the Legislature will actually do something about the noxious “retro” program. Like end it.

So if toxic assets aren’t worth anything, who are the private sector people that are going to buy them?*

*Yes, I can be horribly mean and snarky. A lot. But I really don’t know the answer to this, nor, from what I understand, do many smart people who have degrees in business and economics. It’s not meant as an insult, it’s meant as a serious question, because the new administration is taking questions from bloggers and everyone and stuff.

Personally I imagine President Obama would answer this question pretty well, if someone can ask it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDcUY6HiAo[/youtube]

Eddie “Clean Head” Vinson. I’m fine, the economy, well, you know. Rough patch. Talk amongst yourselves.

Fixing up school buildings for the wee kiddies is waste-fraud-abuse-communism-the-end-of-America. Making sure the assholes on Wall Street who did this to us get more money and keep their jobs is virtuous!

At Blue Oregon, former Senate candidate Steve Novick makes the case for restoring the education funding slashed by the mindless “centrists” in the Senate, and goes one further:

What are we worried about ­ a Republican filibuster? Bring it on! Let teachers and parents and principals and economists and Governors deluge their Senators with calls begging them to do the right thing! Let these so-called “moderate” Republican Senators (and a few self-styled “moderate” Democrats) explain why hundreds of billions for banks, hundreds of billions for the war in Iraq, are just james dandy, but saving our schools from cuts, rebuilding schools first constructed in the first New Deal, helping college students facing huge increases in tuition ­ oh, no! They’ll cave.

I’d have to agree at this point. The threat of a filibuster has to be tested or the GOP will always obstruct, delay and grandstand. Might as well get it on now while the country’s attention is focused. While delay is not desirable, it might actually save time because I’m hard pressed to believe the House is going to go along with the Senate version.

Let the nation watch, spell-bound, as Senate Republicans try to explain to the American people why they have to save our kids’ futures by letting the economic crisis decimate the public school systems.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfG_AFPlcr8[/youtube]

(Props to TPM.)