Checks balanced

I'm having a hard time playing optimistic after that last post, but I caught a good story today too...

In spite of Citigroup's success in exchanging re-election donations for feigned ignorance at the executive branch, the judicial put a bitta smackdown on their asses today.

The SEC, who is appointed by representatives of the people to keep the stock market humming along for the good of the people made a deal with Citigroup. This deal was to close the books on their part in a massive toxic mortgage scam. The deal looks like this:
Citigroup sold $1 BILLION in bunk mortgages to its customers. Knowing they were bunk and unlikely to be re-paid, Citi bet against them.

The investors lost $700 MILLION.

Citi earned $160 MILLION. (Good to be 'in' on it!)

In exchange for this blatant disregard of both ethics and rules, the SEC was going to charge Citi with negligence and fine them $285 MILLION.

Negligence... Well, I guess they should've tried harder to not screw their own customers over.

Luckily, this plea deal from the Executive had to be checked over by the Judicial. And, apparently, Citi was unable to bri*ahem* lobby Federal Judge Jed "Not on My Watch" Rakoff into seeing this as a fair and reasonable punishment for a billion dollar scandal.

(Think maybe the fine was fair? Let me take a shot at illustrating this. When a man is arrested with a kilo of heroin, they don't just take 250 grams of it and tell him he is a *bad* man, that he should have a nice day, and if he is ever in need of a job he's always welcome at the station. No. They take ALL the heroin, everything the guy owns and throws him in jail for at least a significant portion of his life.)

Judge Rakoff decided he thought maybe a closer look was necessary. He said:
"The court concludes, regretfully, that the proposed Consent Judgment is neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest"
"Although this [settlement] would appear to be tantamount to an allegation of knowing and fraudulent intent... the SEC, for reasons of its own, chose to charge Citigroup only with negligence"

Now THAT is some good solid judgin'...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.
read more:Citigroup-SEC $285m toxic mortgage deal rejected(bbc)

Of the people, but not for the people

This is it, folks... We've lost control of our government.

You guys will remember this little thing we liked to call the TARP, right? Everybody got their britches in a bundle over the "unprecedented" amount of $700 BILLION to be loaned to Wall Street to ostensibly avoid worldwide economic collapse.. Nobody liked it, but at that time, Bush was the lamest of ducks with at least one foot out the door and something [supposedly] HAD to be done.

That the economy eventually collapsed in every realistic and measurable way is irrelevant, but I certainly had to bring it up.

Notice my use of the quotes around "unprecedented" in the paragraph above. I use these quotes because there was plenty of precedence. In fact, the very same banks we bailed out were already into us for a LOT more than $700 BILLION at that time!

Prior to the TARP, the Fed had already made loans to the banks at a total cost that amounted to $7.77 TRILLION! In your face, puny little $700 BILLION.

Bullet points. Too frustrated to make paragraphs:

Magnitude

• $7.7 TRILLION is more than half the value of everything our country produced that year
• Our 6 largest banks turned their share into $13 BILLION in profit
• Morgan Stanley alone borrowed enough ($107 BILLION) to pay off a tenth of nation's delinquent mortgages
• Bank of America took $91.4 BILLION of these secret loans while simultaneously taking $45 BILLION from the TARP funds
• Banks that were declared too big to fail grew even larger
  
• Our largest banks enjoyed more profits in the last 2.5 years than they did in the 8 years preceding the crisis
• All the while, they continue to spend MILLIONS lobbying to derail or weaken laws designed to keep them in check
  

Transparency

• The loans to the banks were undisclosed
  
• The profits earned by the banks were undisclosed
• Shareholders, the "owners" of the banks were not told (Where did the profits go?!?)
  
• Taxpayers, the people that have given the authority to the Fed to watch over our money were not told
• Congress, which was actively writing an overhaul to our financial regulatory system was not told
• These loans were provided with no protections or guarantees for the taxpayers
  

THEY LOANED OUR MONEY VALUED AT MORE THAN HALF OF EVERYTHING OUR COUNTRY CAN MAKE IN A YEAR TO PRIVATE COMPANIES WITHOUT EVER TELLING ANYONE! The Fed knew, the Bank Managers knew. Not even the owners of the banks knew!

THIS is whyipaytaxes.
read more:Wall Street Banks Earned Billions In Profits Off $7.7 Trillion In Secret Fed Loans Made During The Financial Crisis(tp)

Seasonings Greetings!

Aside from the police investigation and eventual court cases, this thought has little to do with whyipaytaxes.

However, I just had to remark on the increased use of Pepper Spray this Black Friday.

• At Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch: 'Mom, I was just pepper-sprayed'(LAT)

• Off-Duty Officer Pepper Sprays Unruly Shoppers at N.C. Walmart(mfp)

Tis the season...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

If this committee was 'Super', we're screwed

Bad news:

The congressional *ahem* "Super" Committee was unable to do as they were told and will not be proposing any suggestions regarding deficit reduction aside from the following advice:

Somebody should throw together some kind of a committee to figure this shit out!

Good news:

It was no one's fault! Feel free to vote for incumbents next year, because not one of the 12 people on the committee failed in their task. As it turns out, it was the other side that failed. Awesome!

Assembling a committee of professional politicians to solve a perpetual national crisis with a result of finger pointing and bullshit posturing...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Sarcasm-free TL;DR summary: Super committee convenes with only the advice that this problem should be dealt with, not ignored for future generations to fix and the Republicans blame the impasse on the Democrats who blame the impasse on the Republicans.

Some more good, solid legislatin'

If there is one thing you can count on our congress to do, it is some good solid legislatin' for the good of the people when we need it most... If you doubt me, I have a prime example from this past week.

In a congress where budgets cannot be balanced and the worldwide embarrassment of ignoring self imposed deadlines and slipping credit ratings cannot be avoided, a very important piece of legislation got passed this week:
Pizza is a vegetable. No vegetable toppings needed, the tomato paste counts as a vegetable for our school children. To be fair, they also agreed to keeping french fries on the menu and to delay a requirement to provide a minimum amount of whole grains in school meals, so they really are getting quite a bit done here.

I like to feel this pride in my government. I'm positively beaming and smitten with our fine congresspeople. But to be honest, this quality legislatin' didn't write itself. Oh, no. It was requested by the companies that provide pizza and french fries to schools. And without batting an eye, our congress came together in a moment of true harmony to put the hopes and dreams [prof-it mahr-jin] of these companies ahead of the health and well being of our nation's children.
(I realize that this 'change' is to avoid changing the rules from what has served us so well over the past decades. Wait... Did someone say something about an obesity epidemic?)

So remember fellow countrymen and women, if you want your children to grow up with strong bones and superior health - pizza with every meal! ...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Watch Jon Stewart put it into perspective: Superbad(tds)
My 2 favorite lines in his clip:
"Clearly you are in the pocket of Big Hot Pocket"
"It's not democracy, it's digiorno"

TO BE FAIR: It appears to be some kind of a superpower thing: The Russians recently did some of their own solid legislatin' and decided that beer isn't food.

Its been a good few weeks!: In money we trust(wipt)

Our support of major utility companies

Just an interesting graph to share...

Not only are these 13 fabulous companies NOT paying a dime in taxes, but they are actually receiving our tax dollars to support their operations.

I suppose... With only $4.8 billion in profits, they need our tax money more than the schools do...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.
Read more: You’re paying taxes, so why aren’t energy companies?(reuters)

Snails pace

In order to save a mess of rare snails from a new coal mining site in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation decided to step in and get the killing off of these creatures done more efficiently.

And you thought they were going to try to save them...

They went around the site of the future coal mine and gathered up over 6,000 snails and moved them to climate controlled rooms where they went to work getting the little buggers to breed. (Mood lighting, Barry White and plenty of chocolate seemed to do the trick)

Unfortunately, the room that contained the 'Powelliphanta giant land snails' had a technical glitch and all 800 snails were frozen solid.

No wonder they're rare...

THIS is whyNEWZEALANDERSpaytaxes.
read more: Mishap freezes to death 800 rare New Zealand snails(bbc)

I'm glad mommy and daddy are safe in their government storage facility. Yay!

In money we trust

As you may or may not have heard, there is some shit going down out there. If I am to understand things correctly, there are massive protests in many of the cities in America, our national deficit is surpassing numbers that were beyond wildest imaginations just a few decades ago, Europe is on the brink of economic catastrophe, we're still embroiled in at least one war right now, a minimum of 9% of our eligible work force can't find work, the Palestinians and Israeli's are still angry with each other, and I hear there are some untrustworthy motherfucker's out their with all sorts of guns, bombs and even a few working on nuclear weapons. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that there are many other things that could really use the full attention of the United States Government right about now.

But, no. OH no.

Our congress (approval rating = 9%) has got FAR more important shit to deal with here. After all, how can our country function if we don't take a time out to RE-AFFIRM our National MOTTO???

Yes, sadly, today, on the floor of the House, they brought up a motion, debated, and passed the reaffirmation of our national motto that was written in 1956: In God We Trust.

This was followed, nearly immediately, by a motion to mint coins to recognize the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Well, I sure am glad we cleared THAT up...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Watch the video: Men Not At Work(tds)