Joe Nocera Takes a Look at the Passage of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933

For The New York Times, here.

Glass-Steagall separated investment banking from commercial banking and created the FDIC to protect the latter.

Nocera fails to note how the abolition of Glass-Steagall in our time left the FDIC in place to protect the former, which leaves taxpayers on the hook for the speculative failures of the trading desks of the big banks.

He poo-poos the Republican charge in 1933 that it all amounted to socialism. He's right. It's fascism, and it has gotten a whole lot worse.

Jim Cramer Defends His October 2008 Sell Advice

Here was his advice on Monday, October 6, 2008 on The Today Show:

“Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.”

The market free-fall had already begun after September 19 when this index was still above 1200. Selling two weeks into this crash was like trying to catch a falling knife. The time to bank one's profits had been after a pull-back from the highs over 1500, at the 1400 or even the 1300 level, not after a "mere" 100 point pull-back from 1200 to 1100. By then the time for action had already passed, over 400 points off the highs on the S and P 500.

"I know I have been castigated for having told people to sell stocks to raise money for anything they might need for five years, a solid attempt by me to really warn people who were counting on stocks for retirement and college tuition when we were at Dow 11,000 and Dow 10,300.

The assumption at the time was that things were bad -- like now -- but that it was worth buying and holding and 'riding it out.'

I didn't think so. I thought it was better to sidestep it and then come back when the coast was clear . . .." (source)

He's now laying out what a worst case scenario going forward would look like this time around, apparently in order to be able to say "I told you so" if we have another crash. 

Liberal Grotesque: Obama and the Cleft Lips

"During the fight over the financial reform bill, the administration consistently took the positions for which the banks were lobbying. Obama and his team were eager to weaken the “Volcker Rule" . . . [B]anks were given massive loans at or near 0 percent from the Fed . . . The administration sided with the banks in keeping the Consumer Financial Protection Agency inside the Federal Reserve . . .."

-- Eric Alterman, here, true believer, who nevertheless saves his real indignation for Wall Street

Incompetent FBI Stormtroopers Raid Address Vacated by Suspect Two Years Prior, Terrorize Renters

The incident occurred in March and is now the subject of a Fourth Amendment lawsuit.

The story is here.

White House Spokesman: "We've created more than 2.1 private sector jobs"

Oh yeah? Prove it!

Here.

David Tyree Stands Up For Traditional Marriage

"You can't teach something that you don't have, so two men will never be able to show a woman how to be a woman."

"This [gay marriage] will be the beginning of our country sliding toward, it's a strong word, but anarchy."

"How can marriage be marriage for thousands of years and now all the sudden because a minority, an influential minority, has a push or agenda ... and totally reshapes something that was not founded in our country."

Quoted here.

Another One Who Hates Your Mortgage Interest Deduction: Felix Salmon

Here.

By his own admission he wants to spend the $100 billion tax loss expenditure on some big government fantasy of his own, instead of letting you keep it to raise a family in a safe environment of your own choosing where the kids don't have to be exposed to the low lifes who inhabit . . ..

Well, you get the idea.

These people have no use for families. Where the hell do you think the future country comes from?

Pawlenty, Huntsman and Daniels are Not Real Conservatives: They're Bushies

And owe fealty to the family which turned its back on the Reagan revolution:

Huntsman is the second 2012 GOP White House hopeful to meet with the former president. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty visited with Bush at the former president's office in Houston, Texas a few weeks ago.

The meetings raise eyebrows, as many senior political advisers from both Bush administrations still don't have a candidate to support in the battle for the GOP nomination, especially with Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel's announcement Sunday that he would not make a bid for the White House.

(source)

Jon Huntsman Admires Not Getting Many Things Right The First Time

Lyrics from one of Jon Huntsman's favorite artists, as heard on The Laura Ingraham Show, this morning:

I don't get many things right the first time,

In fact i am told that a lot.

Now i know all the wrong turns ands tumbles and falls

Brought me here. ...

Ben Folds Five, "The Luckiest"

Yeah, that's all we need . . . another president who doesn't get many things right the first time.

The Eerie Way 'Obama' Rhymes With 'Hoover'

From Walter Russell Mead:

Like Obama, Hoover was the child of a broken home with an unconventional background. He was far more widely traveled than most Americans in his day, and his time overseas made him a globalist in his thinking in many ways. His wife (Lou Henry Hoover) was unusually well educated and assertive — at a time when few women went to college, she graduated from coeducational Stanford with a degree in geology. Hoover was an unconventional candidate who came into office on a tidal wave of support.  Hoover, Secretary of Commerce during the Roaring Twenties, had never held elected office before winning the presidency. His campaign went deep into enemy territory, winning over solidly Democratic states in what was still the deep blue South including (like Obama) Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.  Hoover was the great progressive hope of his day — he had supported Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 Bull Moose campaign and was seen as much more forward looking and progressive than the party machine.  He ran on the most diverse presidential ticket until Barack Obama’s own election in 2008; Hoover’s running mate, Kaw nation member Charles Curtis, was the first Native American and the first American with significant non-European ancestry to serve as Vice President of the United States. Hoover continued to burnish his diversity credentials in the White House; he was the first president since Theodore Roosevelt to invite an African American to a White House dinner and he wanted progress on Native American issues to be a hallmark of his administration. Hoover was also deeply concerned about the health of the middle class and the condition of the poor. He was an early backer of the long term, low interest mortgage that became the cornerstone of middle class finance, and he came into office hoping that prosperity would eliminate poverty in the United States.

The similarities in office are just as interesting, here.

Gov. Walker Wins in WI, Supreme Court Smacks Down County Circuit Court Judge as Usurper

As reported here by The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

In its ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court said it took up the case because the lower court had "usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the Legislature."

The Democrats, the unions and courts in Wisconsin all behaved disgracefully in trying to stop the legislatively elected will of the people to find its expression through the due process which the Republicans followed.

Rush Limbaugh: "Agreement between people does not make something true."

On the show, Friday, June 10, 2011.

States of Disaster Depended on $316 Billion of Federal Stimulus in Last Fiscal Year

And that help for current operations is coming to an abrupt end as the new fiscal year begins on July 1.

The Associated Press reports, adding these staggering numbers on top of the current budget data:

The 50 states have a combined $689.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $418 billion in retiree health care obligations.

Read the complete details here.

ObamaCare, Medicare, and Social Security aren't the only back-breakers out there. The individual states have plenty of their own which they can't pay for, either. The whole country is stuck on stupid spending.

4 out of 5 New Mortgages Require 20 percent Down

I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Story here.

Landlords Are Raising Rents!

5 percent this year, and 5 percent next.

Story here.

Quantitative Easing and its Affects in Three Sentences

"[The Fed's] Treasury purchases reduce the quantity of risk free assets, forcing investors to buy riskier assets. Commodities are among those risky assets.

By monetizing the debt, the Federal Reserve is debasing paper money and investors are seeking for tangible assets, things that hurt when you drop them on your foot, as one colorful commentator put it."

-- Marc Chandler, here

Why Quantitative Easing is Here to Stay

It looks like in saving the banks from drowning, the Fed, the dollar, and the country are headed for Davy Jones' Locker.

From Michael Pento:

The truth is that without the ability to fully withdraw prior liquidity the Fed is incapable of significantly raising interest rates. After all, the Fed can't raise rates by fiat. It must sell assets to do so. Similarly, to support the dollar it must take money out of circulation, which is also accomplished by asset sales.

But the Fed's arsenal is no longer stocked with high grade weaponry.

As the rest makes plain, here, its stockpile is full of duds.

Why Hold Bonds in Tax Protected Accounts and Stocks Outside Them?

"Bond coupons are taxed as ordinary income. Stock dividends are taxed more lightly."

-- Brett Arends, here, on a completely different topic.

The Turning Currents of Sarah Palin's Vulgarized Mind

Even after a very long relationship, John Ziegler can't quite seem to put his finger on Sarah Palin's problem in the essay excerpted below. There's hardly a man alive who can diagnose the feminine disease, blinded as men are to women by their own passions, but Jonathan Swift came close: "The current of a female mind stops thus, and turns with ev'ry wind."

Ziegler didn't realize it, but he was on to it, here:

“Hi, John Ziegler, this is Governor Sarah Palin,” said the familiar voice on my phone message. There was a pause. “From Alaska,” she added. It’s typical of Sarah’s underappreciated sense of humor to pretend this needed to be clarified. “I just sat down and watched your movie about 9/11,” she went on, “and it’s unflippin’ believable”—”flippin’” is one of her favorite expressions—”I would like to talk with you about this next documentary. Could you give me a call?”

At this point, Sarah and I had met only once, but we were already developing a bizarre relationship. Over the almost three years that followed, we would often act like friends—while at other times she would act like she barely knew me.  

The Current Shape of the 78 Year Emergency

Robert G. Wilmers, a defender of community banking, doesn't explicitly mention the abolition of Glass-Steagall, but he lays out some of the consequences of that nonetheless, one of which is that the FDIC is now on the hook for the mistakes of speculators, something it was never intended for:

In 1990, the six largest financial institutions accounted for 9 percent of all U.S. domestic deposits. As of Dec. 31, 2010, the six biggest banks accounted for 36 percent of deposits. ...

In 2010, the six largest bank holding companies generated $56.1 billion in trading revenue, or 74 percent of their $75.7 billion in pretax income. ...

The Big Six institutions earned more than 93 percent of the trading revenue generated by all American banks during the past two years. ...

The major Wall Street banks operate under the taxpayer-backed umbrella of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and, as we saw in 2008, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. To pay for the cost of such protection, legislators and regulators have forced thousands of Main Street banks like the one I run to absorb a larger, more expensive set of regulatory costs, including higher capital and liquidity requirements. ...

Regulators have failed to distinguish between trading activity and traditional banking, or to recognize that the activity of an institution, not its form, should be the proper focus of oversight.

New Rules Needed

Main Street banks are heavily regulated -- and have been for generations -- to ensure their safety, soundness and transparency. A new generation of regulation must now be applied to what has become a virtual casino. ...

Those financial institutions that engage in trading should live and die by the pursuit of their fortunes, rather than impose a burden on the whole economy.

It’s time to disentangle the trading of big financial institutions from their more traditional commercial banking operations and put an end to this unsafe business model.

Make sure to read his entire op-ed at Bloomberg, here.