Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission named Adam Storch, a 29-year-old from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s business intelligence unit, as the enforcement division’s first chief operating officer.
“Adam’s skill in technology systems, workflow process, and project management will greatly benefit the division,” SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami said in the statement. “He will help to make us more efficient and nimble and permit us to put more of our investigators on the front lines.” (Read more from bloomberg.com)
The crooks are in charge. They have been for a long time. Our government is the exploitation of our labors to enrich the powerful.
During that long summer between the collapse of Bear Stearns and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Hank Paulson held a secret meeting with the board of Goldman Sachs in Moscow.
Andrew Ross Sorkin tells the tale of the meeting in his new book, Too Big To Fail:
When Paulson learned that Goldman’s board would be in Moscow at the same time as him, he had [Treasury chief of staff] Jim Wilkinson organize a meeting with them. Nothing formal, purely social — for old times’ sake.
For fuck’s sake! Wilkinson thought. He and Treasury had had enough trouble trying to fend off all the Goldman Sachs conspiracy theories constantly being bandied about in Washington and on Wall Street. A private meeting with its board? In Moscow?
For the nearly two years that Paulson had been Treasury secretary he had not met privately with the board of any company, except for briefly dropping by a cocktail party that Larry Fink’s BlackRock was holding for its directors at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi in June.
Anxious about the prospect of such a meeting, Wilkinson called to get approval from Treasury’s general counsel. Bob Hoyt, who wasn’t enamored of the “optics” of such a meeting, said that as long as it remained a “social event,” it wouldn’t run afoul of the ethics guidelines.
Still, Wilkinson had told [Goldman chief of staff John] Rogers, “Let’s keep this quiet,” as the two coordinated the details. They agreed that Goldman’s directors would join him in his hotel suite following their dinner with Gorbachev. Paulson would not record the “social event” on his official calendar…
“Come on in,” a buoyant Paulson said as he greeted everyone, shaking hands and giving bear hugs to some.
For the next hour, Paulson regaled his old friends with stories about his time in Treasury and his prognostications about the economy. They questioned him about the possibility of another bank blowing up, like Lehman, and he talked about the need for the government to have the power to wind down troubled firms, offering a preview of his upcoming speech. (Read more from businessinsider.com)
We probably won’t get around to actually seeing Michael Moore’s anti-capitalist film until it shows up for free on the internet. But fortunately Ira Stoll of the Future of Capitalism went to see it and noticed that the funniest part is the credits–where Michael Moore reveals the capitalists behind his film. (Read more from businessinsider.com)
I know bullshit when I see it. Consider CNN’s bias, accusatory coverage of a healthcare worker who doesn’t want government-mandated injections:
I have the very strong impression that the annual government-media blitz about flu is nothing but pandering to the medical industrial complex. Somebody is making a killing off the millions of flu shots our government is increasingly requiring people to take.
Nurses got sick from the “swine flu” vaccine in Sweden • UPDATE – 1 suspected death Annika Linde, director of The Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) manages to spin this into something positive by stating “The vaccine has more side effects than the normal flu vaccine. It is a sign that proves that it gives an effective protection.”
With a Consumer Reports poll showing nearly 2/3rds of U.S. parents will hold off on having their children vaccinated with the H1N1 late-2009 season flu vaccine, health authorities are likely to resort to scare tactics as they have in past years to induce parents into having their children vaccinated.
. . . .
The U.S. government has ordered 250 million doses of the H1N1 late-2009 flu strain vaccine from five suppliers: MedImmune, a unit of AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis (France), Australia’s CSL, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. In past years the CDC ordered over 100 million doses of the seasonal flu vaccine.
Recognizing resistance to flu vaccination, flu shots are not just being offered at clinics this year. There is coercion at schools, hospitals and workplaces to undergo flu vaccination. The military must take the vaccine.
Reported cases of the flu are likely to be on the upswing as human immunity declines with the seasonal tilt of the Earth away from the sun in northern latitudes, thus reducing intensity of vitamin D-producing solar ultraviolet-B radiation. Despite doing the obvious – promoting vitamin D supplements – vaccines are forced onto the public.
. . . .
According to package inserts, none of the current vaccines approved by the FDA have been tested for use among pregnant females or in children below the age of 2 for Medimmune Flumist®, or for injectable vaccines, not below age 18 for CSL (Australia) vaccine; not below age 4 for Novartis (UK-USA) vaccine; not below 6 months of age for Sanofi Pasteur (France) vaccine. However, these vaccines are being widely promoted for use among pregnant women and very young infants.
. . . .
In another misdirection, the Centers for Disease Control continues to advise the public to undergo vaccination for the seasonal flu in addition to the novel H1N1 late-2009 season triple reassortant flu. However, according to the CDC’s own website, 99% of all influenza A viruses currently in circulation (late September 2009) are the late-2009 H1N1 viruses. The seasonal flu strains have virtually disappeared. Seasonal flu shots would be superfluous and even problematic.
Dr. Racaniello asks: “Why would anyone consider receiving this vaccine?” Yet this is being promoted by the CDC and this recommendation is being parroted by the news media.
. . . .
The news media is aiding and abetting the flu hysteria, dramatizing every flu-related death even when there has been no laboratory confirmation that the H1N1 flu strain was involved, and serves as a free publicity agent for vaccine makers. Behind the scenes there must be mumblings to news reporters they are not to print or air negative reports that would cause the public to lose confidence in the nation’s vaccination program.
An ABC News report cites US health officials as saying low vaccination rates “could have dire consequences,” despite the fact this flu outbreak has produced fewer deaths than the typical seasonal flu and did not result in abnormal mortality as it swept through South America during its summer flu season there.
Complicity between vaccine makers, public health authorities and the news media maintains undeserved public confidence in a flu vaccination program that often only offers side effects and no disease prevention or reduction in mortality.
. . . .
Lack of evidence of effectiveness
While older adults are at the greatest risk for dying from the flu, surprisingly there is only one randomized controlled study among older persons (60 years and up) which reported a 33% reduction in flu-like illness and a 56% reduction in circulating viral count. But this means the vaccine was ineffective in most people in regard to preventing symptoms. [Journal American Medical Assn 1994; 272:1661–1665]
Centers for Disease Control officials concede the ability of flu vaccines to generate sufficient antibodies and effectively reduce symptoms and prevent death is only about 30–50% among currently licensed vaccines. [Current Topics Microbiology Immunology 2009; 333:413–29]
Data collected over 33 flu seasons shows flu vaccination reduced the death rate substantially less than expected. [Journal American Medical Assn 2003; 289: 179–86; Archives Internal Medicine 2005; 165: 265–72]
But news reporters must put a positive face on flu vaccination, despite evidence to the contrary.
Mismatched vaccines
Another major problem is that the flu viruses in the vaccines often do not match the flu viruses in circulation in the population. [Vaccine 2008; 26 (Supplement 4): D5–D9]
For example, in 2007 the trivalent flu vaccine (contained 3 strains of the flu) was only 40% protective due to mismatched flu strains. [Cleve Clin J Med. 2008 Dec; 75(12):865–70] The percentage of viruses that were matched to vaccine strains was 5% (3 of 62) in 2004–2005, 5% (2 of 42) in 2005–2006, and 91% (85 of 93) in 2006–2007. [J Infect Dis. 2009 Jan 15; 199(2):159–67]
In the 8 years spanning 1998–2005, flu vaccine mismatch occurred in 4 of those years including both the 2003–04 and 2004–05 consecutive seasons. The nation had no protection beyond natural immunity in many recent flu seasons. Due to flu strain mismatch, 84% of the vaccinees over 75 years of age who received the flu vaccine in 1997–98 were not protected against infection. [J. Medical Virology 61:94–99, 2000] The public is never alerted to this.
A major review encompassing 64 published studies which evaluated the ability of flu vaccines to reduce symptoms or viral count showed overall effectiveness of just 23% during seasons when the flu strain in the vaccine matched the virus in circulation within the population. Effectiveness did not differ from years when vaccines were mismatched. [Lancet 2005; 366:1165–1174]
In the end, the question of whether or not to get a flu shot should be made by patients consulting with their doctors, not by government.
The U.S. government effectively attacked Iran yesterday after its proxy terror group Jundullah launched a suicide bomb attack against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at their headquarters in Pishin, near the border with Pakistan.
Leaders of the Al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni terrorist group Jundullah have claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Iran that killed over 40 people yesterday. The group is funded and trained by the CIA and is being used to destabilize the government of Iran, according to reports out of the London Telegraph and ABC News. (Read more from prisonplanet.com)
A former NASA scientist was arrested on Monday for offering to pass along classified information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.
Stewart David Nozette, who is credited with helping discover evidence of water on the moon, was arrested by federal authorities on Monday. (Read more from haaretz.com)
I’m a long-time fan of Bill Moyers, but I think he’s been completely off the mark on economics. I posted the comments below on his website. After a couple hours, they vanished.
0:00 – Don’t even get me started about Michael Moore’s movie. He blames Capitalism for government bailouts of wall street, even though that’s the opposite of capitalism. Then he tries to make a point for socialism at the end without providing any support for it, or acknowledging the ruin it has sowed all over the world.
4:15 – SIMON JOHNSON: Remember Wall Street convinced us that trading derivatives without any regulation, that all these kind of crazy housing loans, which are very dangerous for consumers. That all of this was sensible. All of this was a good way to sustain growth.
My reaction: Trading derivatives would not have been a problem if the traders were allowed to fail. GOVERNMENT did not let anyone fail. That’s why there was recklessness. We don’t need more regulation. We need to let irresponsible people fail. The example of “crazy housing loans” is even more glaring. GOVERNMENT REQUIRED BANKS to hold a certain portion of bad loans, mostly in minority neighborhood. REQUIRED! Also, almost all loans were subsidized by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. These institution were run by government regulators – thousands of them working forty hours of week. It is government intervention that failed, not a lack of regulation.
4:45 – BILL MOYERS: ‘Does this crisis reflect something about the disproportionate influence of a few incompetent investment bankers or a deeper breakdown of capitalism?’
This is not capitalism. It’s socialism for the rich.
6:10 – SIMON JOHNSON: . . . the Obama Administration has is leaning in a better direction.
WTF? Obama, Bush W., McCain were all unanimous is supporting the bank bailouts. Obama is running the biggest deficit in history, he’s appointing the same banksters to top jobs, and he’s ignoring the most important opportunity for ‘change’ which is Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve.
7:30 – MARCY KAPTUR: [story about JP Morgan Chase]
Instead of encouraging people to break the law, how about encouraging Congress to STOP GIVING JP MORGAN OUR MONEY.
12:00 – MARCY KAPTUR: . . . And we know the basic rules of economics. Housing leads us to recovery. Housing was the precipitating factor in this economic downturn. Unless you dealing with the housing sector, you aren’t going to have growth in this economy.
This statement is nonsense.
12:30 – SIMON JOHNSON: This is capitalism, Bill.
No, it’s not.
15:00 – PRESIDENT OBAMA: . . . Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall.
You should not have given them MY money to begin with.
16:30 – MARCY KAPTUR: . . . with the largest financial crisis in American history, in the largest transfer of wealth from the American people to the biggest banks in this country, that every committee of Congress would be involved in hearings, that this would be on the news, that people would be engaged in this. What we’re seeing is– tangential hearings on very arcane aspects of financial reform . . . rather than hearings on the fundamental new architecture of reforming the American financial system, so that we have prudent lending, capital accumulation at the local level again; that we encourage savings and limit debt by the American people. Our country needs this. Those aren’t the hearings that are happening.
I don’t doubt her sincerity but I doubt her understanding. This conversation seems almost irresponsible with it’s non-mention of the money printing federal reserve. If she wants to encourage savings, stop printing money (end the fed), so that the purchasing power of somebody’s savings will be preserved. If she wants to limit debt, stop printing money (end the fed).
To me this interview seems like a “tangential hearing on a very arcane aspect” of the financial crisis.
17:15 – MARCY KAPTUR: If you want a marker at the Federal level of how serious we are to get justice out of this financial crisis, look at the F.B.I. Look at the number of people who are really prosecuting and investigation mortgage fraud and securities fraud. It is so small . . . And until those numbers increase, we will not begin to get justice.
Much easier (and cheaper) than prosecuting people is simply letting them face the consequences of their irresponsibility. Stop subsidizing bad loan, stop bailing out corrupt banks.
21:00 – MARCY KAPTUR: . . . When they messed up during the 1980s, they put their bill through the savings and loans crisis on the American people. $140 billion. . . . But that, you know, it opened the flood gates. They go, ‘Oh, we can get away with $140 billion?’ This time how many trillions have they gotten away with?
Here the conversation swing sooooooo close to the truth. The next sentence should be “We need to stop bailing them out,” or “The problem is government involvement,” or, “If we only let people fail . . .” Instead, the next sentence is a call for more government.
25:30 – MARCY KAPTUR: [discussion of cover contracts with the Federal Reserve]
Say the words, Congresswoman. END THE FED. or, at least AUDIT THE FED. SAY IT, Dammit!
27:30 – MARCY KAPTUR: [talks about restricting fundraising]
If government wasn’t controlling everything, industry wouldn’t need to lobby.
In general, this discussion is grossly incomplete. It completely ignores the federal reserve, and the cause of the financial crisis. The crisis was not cause by corrupt banks, although they certainly had a lot to do with it. The crisis was caused by artificially low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve which flooded the world with cheap money and created an unsustainable boom. This is the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle with has predicted this and many other crashes caused by artificially low interest rates. It is almost universally ignored by governments and media.
Jim Rogers on letting people fail, and why we don’t need even more regulation:
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission named Adam Storch, a 29-year-old from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s business intelligence unit, as the enforcement division’s first chief operating officer. 
(Read more from bloomberg.com)
