Wall Street Lobbyists: Pass Bill Deregulating Derivatives — Or We Will Shut Down Government

Via Isaiah Poole at Campaign for America's Future, we have the following from Zach Carter at Huffington Post:

According to multiple Democratic sources, banks are pushing hard to include the controversial provision in funding legislation that would keep the government operating after Dec. 11. Top negotiators in the House are taking the derivatives provision seriously, and may include it in the final bill, the sources said.

The bank perks are not a traditional budget item. They would allow financial institutions to trade certain financial derivatives from subsidiaries that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- potentially putting taxpayers on the hook for losses caused by the risky contracts. Big Wall Street banks had typically traded derivatives from these FDIC-backed units, but the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law required them to move many of the transactions to other subsidiaries that are not insured by taxpayers.

...

The more things change, the more the changes are reversed by Republicans. Derivatives are arguably a major cause of the Wall Street collapse of 2008. They are inherently risky and under Dodd-Frank are currently not government-backed; see Wikipedia for a summary and list of the risks. Wikipedia concludes

[The loss] comes to a staggering $39.5 billion, the majority in the last decade after the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was passed.

GOP Santa

Wikipedia is not known for allowing disputed content to remain unchallenged for long: almost everyone except the Wall Street fraudsters agrees the risks of unregulated derivatives are unacceptable. But Wall Street wants them back, with bells on... i.e., with FDIC backing. Your tax dollars at work, for Wall Street!

And the Party of No says Yes! Yes! Yes! to reviving them, or else they'll take their marbles and go home.

Campaign for America's Future has a petition. I signed it; what about you?

Coal Boss Donald Blankenship Indicted For Conspiracy To Violate Federal Reg's

This may be the only time in your life that you see a major player in the fossil fuel industry indicted for anything more than parking in a handicapped space (and that of course never happens either). Here's Dylan Scott of TPM:

...

Surface coal mine, Wyoming

Blankenship, who, as the New York Times reported this week, grew up poor in West Virginia before rising to become one of the most powerful coal bosses in the United States, came to typify all the worst caricatures of ruthless industrialists. He broke unions. He dismissed federal regulations and dared inspectors to catch him in the act. He described his industry in evolutionary terms.

"It's like a jungle, where a jungle is survival of the fittest. Unions, communities, people -- everybody's gonna have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society, and that capitalism, from a business standpoint, is survival of the most productive," he said in the 1980s.

Coal miner, 1930s

But with the death of 29 miners in the April 5, 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia, Blankenship's long run may finally have come to an end. He was indicted last month on conspiracy to willfully violate federal mining regulations before the accident and to defraud the United States by making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission in its aftermath.

...

If Blankenship were anyone else than his smug, self-satisfied self, someone might feel sorry for him, but as things are, hey, "it's like a jungle..."

I predict these outcomes:

• Blankenship will be acquitted of all charges;
• Not one single dangerous practice will be discontinued at his mines;
• None of us will live to see him accused of any other violations or frauds;
• Other energy corporation CEOs will feel free to ignore federal regulations;
• No other energy CEO will be indicted in your or my lifetime.

Have a nice day!

Have You Ever Had The Feeling Something Just Isn't... Right... With The AP?

TPM, Daniel Strauss:

AP Reporter And Editor Fired Over False McAuliffe Report

The Associated Press has fired a reporter and editor in connection to a false story alleging Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe lied to a postal inspector in a fraud scheme, according to The Huffington Post.

The author of the report, which was retracted soon after it was published, Bob Lewis has been fired, the news services announced Monday. Dena Potter, a news editor for the Associated Press who covered Virginia and West Virginia, has also been fired.

...

It's not completely clear from the lede, but that's two people, a reporter and (separately) an editor, who were fired. I wonder how much Ken Cuccinelli paid them to release the story...

UPDATE: AP fired a third employee. Now the News Media Guild, representing AP employees, is getting involved. Pass the popcorn...

Rmoney's Fact-Free Jeep Ad Scares Jeep Factory Workers

How loooow can he go? David Dayen of FDL has some news on that:

There's a pic like this
in Rmoney's lying ad

Mitt Romney’s latest play for Ohio – which remains the touchstone of the entire election, desperate plays for Minnesota and Pennsylvania aside – apparently involves straight-up lying about the intentions of Chrysler to “build Jeeps in China,” to the extent that Jeep factory employees are calling their managers wondering if they still have a job.

[quote from UAW local president]

Fiat’s chief executive reiterated today that there are no plans to move Jeep production to China.

...

Dayen then describes the balance of forces in this war of truth vs. blatant falsehood: newspapers' pointing out Rmoney's ads as pants-on-fire class does not balance out the huge ad buys of the Rmoney campaign. On the one hand, a few calls to union shop stewards should set the record straight; on the other, maybe enough autoworkers will remain ignorant of the falsehood of the ad to be willing victims of it when they go to the polls.

Happy Halloween!

It's really difficult to campaign against a candidate willing to lie through his shiny white teeth about anything and everything to win. That is to say, it's really difficult to campaign against today's current focal GOP strategy. These people are neither honest nor well-intended, and there is real danger that they can persuade people to vote against their own interests for the worst reasons. We can only hope we can stop them. And Great Pumpkin, I'd also like a pony...

Court Unseals Testimony In Divorce Trial: Did Rmoney Lie Under Oath To Protect Friend's Financial Interests?

From Laura Gottesdiener at AlterNet:

Breaking Update: Court Unseals Potentially Devastating Testimony --
Romney Said Stocks Sold at 1/10th of Eventual Value Was 'Good Price'
Romney does appear to have covered for his friend.
October 25, 2012 |

[AlterNet] Editor's Update: The Boston Globe reports: "Mitt Romney testified under oath in 1991 that the ex-wife of Staples founder Tom Stemberg got a fair deal in the couple’s 1988 divorce, even though the company shares Maureen Sullivan Stemberg received were valued at a tenth of Staples’ stock price on the day of its initial public offering only a year later. At the time the Stembergs split, Romney suggested, there was little indication that Staples’ value would soon skyrocket. Romney’s testimony in a post-divorce lawsuit brought in 1990 by Sullivan Stemberg was unsealed on Thursday in Norfolk Probate and Family Court at the Globe’s request. Sullivan Stemberg sued unsuccessfully to amend the couple’s financial agreement after Staples went public in 1989 and closed its first day of trading at $22.50 per share, 10 times the value she had received."

According to the Globe, Sullivan Stemberg sold 175,000 shares of Staples stock at $2.25 per share, and sold 80,000 shares at $2.48 a few months later. “In my opinion, that’s a good price to sell the securities at,” Romney testified. "But on April 28, 1989, barely a year after Sullivan Stemberg sold more than half of her shares on the premise that they were worth less than $2.50 apiece, the company made its initial public offering at $19 per share and ended its first day at $22.50," the Globe reports.

...

I'm not an expert on investments, but this sounds like fraud coupled with a kind of insider trading: perhaps Rmoney knew of the firm's intent to go public at a dramatically higher price, and testified otherwise to save his buddy some money in the divorce. It also sounds as if it might be a very difficult thing to prove.

I'm convinced that guys (it's always guys) at Rmoney's high-rolling level do this sort of thing, and get away with it, all the time. There are probably few large financial transactions that would bear close scrutiny, but an overwhelming majority of them take place under no scrutiny at all. Even now, 20 years after the divorce, Rmoney could probably get away with an "everybody does it" argument. Or maybe not. Again from the AlterNet article:

In the testimony, however, Romney allegedly lied about the future of the company, saying it was “overvalued” and that Stemberg was a “dreamer” for thinking the company could grow large. As a result, Maureen received very little in the divorce settlement--only to learn that her husband and his cohort Mitt Romney quickly turned around and cashed in their own stocks in Staples for a small fortune right after the divorce was finalized.

Women, including those who routinely vote, are not keen on being ripped off in divorce settlements, and their empathy with other women in this matter is often understandably high. Rmoney has enough (pardon the expression) woman troubles already, without this. I've no idea how it will turn out, but it may be in the news, despite its being unfavorable to Rmoney, because the case has all the other ingredients: popular office supply store Staples, celebrity divorce lawyer Gloria Allred, Mittens, money, power, and legally questionable activity. How could a gossip-seeker ask for more?