Ah, silver lining.

Bernanke’s confirmation *is* on InTrade.

It’s still high, but in the last couple of days it started heading down, and this afternoon it has fallen six points. Last trade right now was at 87, and the trend is moving in the wrong direction.

sell! sell!

More news to be laid right on the WH’s doorstep:

Half of U.S. States Have Run Out of Money for Unemployment Insurance
Thursday, January 21, 2010
“Twenty-five states have run out of money to pay for unemployment insurance, forcing them to borrow at least $25 billion in order to keep sending out benefits checks. . . .
“In addition to the 25 states that have exhausted their unemployment trust funds, another nine are on their way to being in the same situation within six months . . . ”

Link.

That’s a link to a different story.

Here’s a link to ProPublica’s reporting, which seems to have been the source of the story. It includes a nifty table with state-by-state data.

Thanks so much, Peterr, for noting my error and providing the link to ProPublica. Great source, too.

FWIW, here’s the correct link to the story I was referencing.

A report via email from a friend about an ad today in the Sacramento Bee:

“full page spread in the main section of the Bee today, under the sponsorship/disclaimer “Americans for Responsible Health Care”. Huge interlocked pics of Senators Boxer and Brown …

“Headline: BARBARA BOXER, MEET SCOTT BROWN (and underneath side-by-side photos): YOUR NEWEST COLLEAGUE.

” . . . ending with: Call Senator Boxer at (916) 448-2787 and tell her to join Scott Brown in opposing the government takeover of health care.”

This ad is part of “Print Ads Targeting Senators Harry Reid, Arlen Specter, Blanche Lincoln, Kirsten Gillibrand, Barbara Boxer Come on Heels of Successful Ad Campaign in Massachusetts Senate Special Election Campaign” Link.

DDay,
Thanks for this.
BTW, is there any Paul Volcker stock on InTrade?
How’s it doing?

Bob in AZ

It’s gotta be up, Bob. At long last!

Obama’s ‘Volcker Rule’ shifts power away from Geithner

And I take particular glee in this:

“Industry officials, however, said they were startled and disheartened that Geithner was overruled, in part because they supported the more moderate approach Geithner proposed last year.”

LINK.

Corporate Aristocrats and the usurpation of constitutional checks and balances under the color of law, in the lust for endless profit!!

We find these truths to be self evident:

1) law is f0r those who buy and manipulate it.

2) “Life” is subservient to corporate identity

3) “Liberty” is a function of perceived instilled needs….

3) Equality is a function of one’s Assets or lack thereof,

4) Money trumps merit!

5) Corporations vs We the People, the governed, the taxpayer, the fucked….

Will Ben Bernanke Become The First Casualty Of The Brown Election?

No, health care was the first casualty.

I’d say that the Brown election was made possible because health care reform had been a casualty of corruption, having been wrecked by sellout corporatist politicians who infest the Democratic Party months before.

Health care reform wasn’t the first casualty of the Brown election.

Real reform was killed months before.

And Barak Obama is an accomplice if not the actual perpetrator.

This is all kabuki sop to the masses. Bernanke will be confirmed after promising to be a better boy and someone will add a sternly worded letter to the file.

Your crystal ball is never cloudy.

Cynicism, not a crystal ball. The only time in recent years my cynicism has proven wrong is that Sotomayor didn’t vote with the majority yesterday.

We knew that today’s announcement – you could call it Glass-Steagall II – that “no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit” was a big real, and represented the triumph of Paul Volcker over the more slave-to-Wall Street elements in the White House. The picture here says it all about who appears to be winning and losing, at least today, in the White House. And I hope more is on the way.

Um, no. You are being fooled again.

See HERE

There’s a lot of that going around and for good reason.

Sigh.

Does your Magic 8 ball say anything about the current majority on the SC being branded as “activist” judges with an unarguable political agenda?

Sotomayor didn’t vote with the majority yesterday.

In this politicized Supreme Court, only five votes were necessary. Do you think she would have voted with the majority if they needed six votes?

Seems to be that way a lot lately.

HCR: You need 218 votes, get 220. But you want legislation for the good of the corporations? Say you need bipartisan support and pretend to chase a Republican Senator around for a few months. That didn’t work? Get a senator in the Democratic Caucus to jump ship. Too much heat for one? Get a couple more to make noises. Then, once the bill is nothing more than massive giveaways and great big gifts to the industries that created all the problems in the first place, pop up with the 60 votes from the Democratic Caucus and call it “progressive,” “left,” “liberal.”

Alot of this Wall Street stuff can be laid at China’s decision to cool off their economy
Then there’s this little tidbit I found on Google homepage when I logged on this morning:
Conservatives warm to Obama’s bank plan

Health care is NOT the first casualty. The Senate bill is not dead. Look to the Dems to use reconciliation to pass the senate bill ONLY (no sidecar), or more likely, a few Republicans to cross over in the House and drag this stinkburger across the finish line. Obama gets “instant bipartisanship (notice he’s still going on about bipartisanship), and the offending Republican reps get great jobs in the health insurance industry when they are voted out of office.

There is just too much good stuff in the Senate bill for the industry to let this one get away.

I’m afraid I agree. If they were sincere, they would somehow reinstate Glass-Steagall in it’s entirety (among other things) They just can’t seem to stop.

I don’t know, the dissension was quite bitter. You should read it. It’s like the Romans V the Vandals with the “left-leaning” members of the court really pissed = Romans.
Harsh words, indeed

I hate to see people cheer a “proposal” yet again, before they see the final bill and all the loopholes. Having said that, I’m not so sure about Bernanke. Is he such a unique figure that the WH will expend great energy to keep him? I think there’s a decent chance after some mandatory hand wringing that he’ll be replace by someone just as bad or worse. Obama would get a boost from the base for getting rid of him. I doubt they’d pay much attention to who actually replaced him, they didn’t the first time. Bernanke gets his pay off some place else, the machine continues one grinding away at the little cogs wearing them down bit by bit.

oh, let’s break out the party hats.

our government is a stinking cesspool, rife with corruption and greed. the sooner it burns down the better.

There is just too much good stuff in the Senate bill for the industry to let this one get away.

You mean like those loophole-filled regulations upon insurers which will be enforced by bankrupt state governments?

Or that excise tax?

Uh-huh.

You claim your muse is cynicism. Generally speaking cynicism is defined as
jaded negativity. Oscar Wilde said a cynic is a person who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

I don’t think that is you. Rather, you are a skeptic. Generally speaking a skeptic is someone with a questioning attitude about things others take for granted.

If they were really sincere they’d pass something real. Obama isn’t proposing that. Read, people, read.

I believe it. I was responding to eCAHN’s point about cynicism in her comment @ 15. There are good reasons to be even more cynical than usual these days, though I’m sure you’re right about the anger from the Justices in the minority.

I think yesterday’s decision will hasten the crashing and burning if something isn’t done about it.

Have you signed Rep Grayson’s petition?

There are now over 41,000 signatures!

AND THE KILLIN GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen David Dayen and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Since President ObamaRahma has given up leadership on anything, do you see power centers in the House and Senate developing on issues, particularly healthcare, jobs, EFCA and bankin’ reform? I am concerned about the pollin’ that is comin out of places like Pennsylvania where it appears Specter can beat Sestak but loses to Toomey or Ohio House races etc. Yesterday’s ruling and Tuesday’s election results don’t hafta be the death of progressive politics unless the progressives, particularly in the House of Representatives shoot themselves in the ass and punt.

We have never had congressional leaders take political leadership from a sitting President of their own party, but the stars have aliegned for it to happen here in the 21st Century. What do you hear Brother David?

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, DEFEAT IS NOT AN OPTION!!

For that matter, I’m not so sure that I agree with eCAHN about Bernanke’s apparent problems in the Senate being nothing but a kabuki.

There are some pissed off Senators, too!

Talking about getting rid of people: how come Lieberman is still chairman of the Homeland Security Committee?

Talking about getting rid of people: how come Lieberman is still chairman of the Homeland Security Committee?

Probably because his sponsors are the same people who sponsor the other Senators. When you have an economy dominated by a vast surplus of capital, governance becomes a commodity.

WOW Obama Threatens Banks.Please Mr President your not good in a fight.Your Advisors in your corner are loud while your takeing a Dive.(President the head)Wnen you take a Dive We The People take the hits and kicks.(were the body}Were the Progressive,Tea Partyers.We voted for Obama on his Campaign.We voted for Scott Brown.

Those Banksters at the The New York Federal Reserve, a privatized bank, have another smoking gun. Geithner and the rest secretly allowed bouses for all the banksters. Geithner also wanted to keep secret the payoffs from AIG to Goldman Sachs. One hundred percent paid for by us taxpayers.

But there is another “smoking gun” of more criminality by Goldman Sachs and the New York Fed. Those “government watchdogs” of Dee Cee were too busy sniffing fire hydrants to notice. Stephen Friedman was a member of the NY Fed, and member of the Goldman Sachs Board of Directors. He was a part of the Paulson Phony Financial collapse. Friedman also is a liar and thief and violated SEC rules. Banksters don’t need no stinking rules. Friedman is also the current Chairman of the United States President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. So he helps neo-cons of the Corporate Financial Espionage Complex create phony wars and false flag ops.

* The New York Fed took over negotiations between AIG and the banks in November 2008 as losses on the swaps exploded. The regulator decided that Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks would be fully repaid for $62.1 billion of the swaps, prompting lawmakers to call the AIG rescue a “backdoor bailout” of financial firms.
—
The actual facts of his shares purchases are straight-forward:
* Stephen Friedman as a member of the board of Goldman Sachs and as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (concurrently), purchased 37,300 shares of Goldman Sachs stock on December 17, 2008 at an average price of $81 per share

* On January 22, 2009, Friedman made a purchase of 15,300 additional shares of Goldman stock at an average price of $67 per share.

The two blocks of stock have risen a total of $5 million in value.

It deserves mention that Friedman owned approximately 46,000 shares of Goldman Sachs common stock prior to these 2 purchases, and he was acting in violation of Fed policy in 2 different ways when Goldman became a bank holding company in September of 2008:

From the WSJ

* The change created a problem. The Federal Reserve Act bars directors representing the public interest from owning bank stocks or being bank directors or officers. Because Goldman had always been an investment bank, Mr. Friedman’s board membership there and his ownership of about 46,000 Goldman shares, at that time, hadn’t run afoul of this rule. Now it did.

Not coincidentally, Friedman then showed his contempt for the situation by BUYING MORE SHARES while his waiver request was pending. This is perhaps the most egregious aspect of the entire story as Friedman exacerbated his existing conflict of interest while he was in possession of material, non-public information that Goldman would be paid $14 billion through AIG.

What has hung Bernanke is his “that’s where the money is” comment about Social Security “cost containment” — completely ignoring the huge waste in DoD and touching the third rail of American politics.

Without that gaffe, he could probably have finessed his way through with liberal support. With it, his failure to see the 2008 crash sinks him. He showed he had learned nothing.

Evidence that those in DC really don’t think we’re listening. He really was stupid to say that.

I’ll believe it when I see it, and not a moment before. Agree with some comments: if Bernanke gets the boot, it’ll be with the lightest of taps on the wrist, and then he’ll be on to some other highly paid sinecure. And then who will replace him, if this even happens? Doubt it’ll be someone any better.

New post up…

The Republican stock channel CNBC is threatening saying if Bernake don’t get confirmed that the market will drop big time. Now they are complaining abt Feingold announcing he will vote against him. The other day I say a list of Dems they thought were vulnerable and Feingold and Schumer was on the list. So I guess there will be lots of corporate dollars campaiging against them. Where were all those investigations that Dems talked abt during Bush’ term. Now CNBC is saying maybe a 10% drop in the market. I get the feeling this s..t is blackmail.

Thanks for that cautionary link. It’s in Obama’s interest to spin these changes as Glass Steagall II, and it’s encouraging that he’s taking steps to appease the base. But cosmetic pseudo-reform has been the watchword of this administration, and we should take care to determine whether the Volcker changes represent truer reform or better cosmetics.

Yep, if Obama started to show the least bit of disappointment with Bernanke there would be an outside chance that he would have trouble. Bush Republicans put him in and he still has wide support among the Democrats. Obama already showed he could circumvent single player shows like Sanders. It’s all in the deal.

Worse yet they get rid of the economist who admits “we had an adjustable rate mortgage and it exploded” and replace him with the guy that cost Harvard billions, Larry Summers. Frying pan to fire.

There was an open rebellion of Democrats in Congress during the Viet Nam War and LBJ’s administration.

I get the feeling this s..t is blackmail.

What’s the point of having HFT if you can’t take it out and run it around the block every once in a while. When you are the bulk of the trades, think GS, Credit Suisse and JPM, and you think a rule would reduce your trades then of course you jog lower.

“Nice stock market you have there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.”

Anyone who believes that Obama’s statement yesterday regarding re-regulation of Wall Street is deluded.

He will let the corporatists in Congress mangle this the same way he allowed them to mangle HCR. In the end, corporations will win, the people will lose and it will be hailed as “REFORM”.

It is a good thing to have the stock market go down. It is a bubble factory made up of false wealth denoting nothing. Too many equate the stock market with the economy when they are barely in the same room.

Bernanke (and Greenspan before him) are merely bubble machines, blowing bubbles for the benefit of Goldman-Sachs and other greedy criminal syndicates. What we need is a new Fed who has NO connection to GS, JPMorgan, BoA, etc. Better still, the new Fed Chair should have NO connection to Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economics.

China holds a lot of debt that I have read is coming due this month.

And why do we owe China so much money? After the demonization of Cuba, our new best friends who are much more harsh shall I say euphemistically in the way they govern.

Hillary is already putting China down for google stuff. There was a time when China could do no wrong in US eyes.Note the corporations who just loove them for all their cheap labor…with no chance of that changing. Why couldn’t the corporations just come home since WE have gone that same route.

It is a bubble factory made up of false wealth denoting nothing.

Yep.

Some of the highest flying stocks right now do not pay a dividend and the stock purchaser cannot vote. In that circumstance the price of the stock is in fact arbitrary because the only return is the comes at the point that it is sold. P/E or any other profit based fundamental become only weak indicators to stock performance. The real performance is simply a gamble on crowd behavior. AIG being one of those interesting stocks: a company that cannot conceivably ever create a positive P/E because their debt would skyrocket without their government backstop. The value of the stock is based seemingly based upon the wisdom of crowds believing that a backstop is more important than potential profitability. The return on the purchase not being an investment so much as an Intrade gamble. A casino betting on crowd reactions and market makers making markets via ZIRP.

I just wrote my senator (Casey) urging him to vote against BB. Everyone should be doing the same!

chuck todd on msnbc just said that vulnerable senate dems in 2010 – including reid – are leaning toward placing blame for the big problems on bernanke. bernanke might just get the boot yet.

“I think if you wanted to send the worst signal to the markets right now in the country and send us in a tailspin, it would be to reject this nomination,” Dodd told a group of reporters. “This is not naming someone to be an assistant secretary to something. This is the most important central banker in the world.”
- Chris Dodd today via Dow Jones

I think he went on about skeletons and closets and the location of bodies after that.