Investment Bank Collusion?

Will investment banks collude to drive up the cost of U.S. government debt? Why might they do that? 1. To improve returns for their clients. 2. To bet against lower rates. Remember, when they foresaw collapse of mortgage markets, they bet against their clients, and remember too, that investment banks caused a large part of our current sad state of affairs. None are in jail. All are rich beyond rich.

Buy a Vowel.

If investment banks were able to pay ratings agencies for Triple A ratings on mountains of garbage euphemistically called Collateralized Debt Obligations, surely the United States Government can purchase a Triple A rating for its debt obligations. 

U.S. Credit Rating

Can't the government simply pay the ratings services for a triple A rating, the same way that the investment banks paid for a triple A rating on their mortgage securities?

Coincidence?

Congress and constipation start with the same three letters. Coincidence? I think not.

Breaking News!

Washington Breaks Wind.

Really Bad Joke: John Edwards for President?

Now that he's officially a lying scuzzball, did we dodge a bullet, or what? How many firsts did we avoid? First unwed mother? First bastard child, although I hardly think it fair to call the child the bastard. What would he have done to his love child had he been elected? Remember the movie: Absolute Power? Scary, isn't it? He lied to us, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, not politician lies, but real people-to-people lies. He should be banned from ever holding public office at any level ever again.

World Population Density

According to Delanceyplace.com, six hundred years ago, somewhere around 1400, the population of the earth was 350 million, or slightly more than the current population of the United States. Most lived on just 4.25 million square miles, or barely 7 percent of the  earth's dry land, that portion being the most suitable for agriculture. Those densely populated regions of earth corresponded to just fifteen highly developed civilizations, the most notable being (from east to west) Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Indonesia, Indochina, the Islamic West Asia, Europe, Aztec, and Inca.Today, 70 percent of the world's six billion people live on those same 4.25 million square miles.

According to my calculations, that results in 82 people per square mile in 1400 and 988  people per square mile today. By comparison, today New York City has about 400 people per square mile. In 1400, my guess is New York City (though it hadn't yet been so named) had about 40 (probably of the Lenape persuasion) people per square mile, and who knows how many when the Europeans started poking around with some vigor two hundred years later.

Question for today.

Who owns your vote?

Quote of the Week

Hell is war. W. Allan McLeod, March 2005

News Item 05/18/07 – The White House and a bipartisan group of Senators reached a deal on immigration reform...

...part of which involves a 700 mile fence along the Mexico – United States border. So now we have George W. Bush, 43^rd President of the United States as much as saying Mr. Chertoff, build that fence, almost ten years to the day, on 06/12/87, when Ronald W. Regan, 40^th President of the United States admonished those pesky Communists by saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Ironic, ain't it?

News Item 05/17/07 – With Whitehouse support (and that’s surprising because?) Wolfowitz wants to negotiate the terms of World Bank misconduct!

Wolfowitz wants to negotiate the terms of his World Bank misconduct (like I’ll quit if you give me a big severance package and say I’m a really good guy and didn’t do anything wrong—I mean who does he think he is, a CEO of an American company?).

Let’s see. He was one of the leading proponents of going to war in Iraq. Now he’s further besmirched the world’s view of all things American by skirting ethics rules of the World Bank by giving his girlfriend a raise in pay and a promotion and generally bullying his way around amongst his peers. What’s next? Surely a Presidential Medal of Freedom—at least that’s what Bush seems to do when his aides royally screw up. Remember Bremer and Tenet? And can a professorship at a leading Republican university be far behind? Wolfowitz is surely the type of person we need at the helm of an institution of higher learning, even a notorious neo-con one. Say, do you suppose if he converts to Christianity, he can fill in for dearly departed Jerry at that misnomer known as Liberty University. Allan McLeod, May 2007– posted Extra Wry 5-17-07

News Item 05/16/07 – Bush Appoints WAR CZAR.

Wouldn’t we be better off with a PEACE CZAR? Allan McLeod, May 2007

News Item 05/15/07 – Jerry Falwell dies.

God’s going to catch hell now. Allan McLeod, May 2007– posted Extra Wry 5-15-07

Quote of the Week

I am but a minor player in a field dominated by mediocrity. Allan McLeod, Apr 2007

Quote of the Week

Until we squish them underfoot, faceless theomaniacs like cockroaches will scurry from the cracks and shadows of anonymity to gobble up democratic freedoms tossed aside by feckless leaders. Allan McLeod, Mar5, 2007

State Farm Isn’t There Mississippi, that is. The insurance company, the state’s largest, will stop writing home-owner policies there because of post-Katrina claim problems, including a ‘flood’ of settlement lawsuits. Yet another legal tussle looms for State Farm as Mississippi’s Attorney General gears up to force the insurer to continue writing policies. Note to homeowners: KNOW YOUR COVERAGE.

363 Tons of Cash! That’s right, CASH, $12 billion, bundled up by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and loaded on pallets and flown to Baghdad where L. Paul Bremer III commenced to throw it around like a drunken sailor on shore leave ostensibly to kick-start a broken economy. (Gee, I wonder who broke it.) Meanwhile, Louisiana and other Gulf States (our gulf, not the Mid-East’s), particularly the beloved Big Easy, haven’t found it easy to get FEMA and other government assistance to kick-start its broken economy. Naturally the politicians - federal, state, and local - are throwing around blame like politicians throw around blame when what they should be doing is lobbying for a big cash swashbuckler like L. Paul Bremer III.

A Pear of Pears PEAR, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory has, since 1979, being trying to prove that thoughts can alter the course of events. Well, this week it finally succeeded; it got shut down due to lack of funding (it spent $10 million over twenty-five years, money largely provided by private donors, some of them crackpots with money, others leading industrialists) and broad skepticism that seemed as much as anything to be the dagger through its ESP heart. Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne, the movers and shakers since PEAR’s inccption, and founding members of the highly secretive PEAR Society (ooooooooh) are packing everything away and leaving their years of research to a fresh batch of paranormalists whose identities and expected time of emergence are known, I’m certain, only to them.

Putin Put In His Two Cents Remember the good old days when all we had to do was hide under our desks and blame the Russians for everything. Well, now it’s the Russian kids turn. This week, Vladimir V. Putin, Steely VV to those who know him well, accused the US of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses geez, haven’t the Russians got any yet), undermining international institutions (would that be the USSR) and making the Middle Ease more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war. OK, we’ll give you the last one but come on, Vlad, haven’t we got enough problems without this type of piling on?

Hale Yale Tale No, not the former Taliban diplomat attending Yale, not the Yale a capella Baker’s Dozen getting gay-slurred in San Francisco, but two students using showers for other than their intended purpose rendering bathrooms unusable for ninety minutes. Conservative Elis, pointing the penis at the moral vacuum created by Yale intellectuals, are screaming for a tableau of basic guidelines for proper and decent behavior. Hey, unless they were taking a dump, I say leave the sanctity of shower sex, hetero, homo, or multi, alone.

Score Card – Progress Iraq Non-binding Congressional resolution to not support the President’s Iraqi troop surge. The Senate votes tomorrow amid bluster and talk of filibustering. Meanwhile, Bush marches on with his head firmly stuck in the sands of fantasy land. BRING OUR TROOPS HOME. CONTINUING THIS WAR IS THE DISASTER.

Truth lasts but a moment…lies, forever. . Allan McLeod, Oct 2006

That’s all for this week, my friends

Houston, We Have A Problem. I’m saddened by Lisa Nowak’s problems and hope something positive can emerge from beneath the tawdry layers of paint the media has poured and dripped all over this story to a degree that would make Jackson Pollock blanch.

And God Created Heterosexual Man! Ted Haggard, fired three months ago in Colorado Springs as pastor of New Life Church for having a relationship with a male prostitute and lying about it, says he is now completely heterosexual. He doesn’t say he is now completely truthful. It seems his church isn’t in a forgiving mood, however, since it’s not inviting him back. Ted and his wife are slated to leave town and not reenter the ministry.

No Free Lunch At Home Depot? As a symbol of his cost-cutting, non imperialistic style of management, HD’s new ceo Blake has told senior execs that the free catered lunch on the 22nd floor sanctioned by deposed ceo Nardelli has gone the way of the aardvark. Blake probably said something like, “Spend your own damn dime; go downstairs and eat in the company cafeteria.” Nardelli took several hundred million in severance pay when he left so, at least for him, buying lunch won’t be a problem.

Gored! I’ve not been impressed with the Hillary shuffle this week, slipping and sliding on the political brown stuff she continues to think we want to hear, and for me, Edwards doesn’t have a position he won't abandon. And Obama didn’t really need to say, “…I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States...” I could see he was standing, but even if I couldn’t I’m certain I wouldn’t have cared. Maybe it’s time to dust of the man who used to be the next president, the man who may win a Nobel Prize, the man who may win an Oscar, the man who may also learn how to run a dynamic campaign.

Left, Right, Left Right If you think the Dems have a problem finding a standout candidate, the Reps have an even bigger one with their current poll leader. ‘Left Rudy,’ the once gay marriage , gun control, and abortions rights mayor, is going to have to do the Big Apple two-step and turn himself into ‘Right Rudy’ if he hopes to get the Christian coalition to come to his dance.

Score Card – Progress Iraq It ain’t getting better. BRING OUR TROOPS HOME. CONTINUING THIS WAR IS THE DISASTER.

A.N.S. Love her or not, a piece of all of us died with Anna Nicole. I hope she can now frolic in peace, and I hope her daughter finds good parents.

By Hook Or By Crook. Conrad Black (Lord Black to those who give a hoot), with a spring date in a Chicago court on charges of criminal fraud and money laundering, is going to be promoting his new biography of Richard M. Nixon. Perhaps Blackie will find a use for Nixon’s infamous line, “Well, I am not a crook.”

9,000% Pay Increase? No, not a fiction. That’s what striking doctors and nurses in Zimbabwe are demanding. Others there are also seeking huge pay increases to combat inflation running at an annualized rate of nearly 1,300% in this country’s rapidly increasing downward spiral. For the number challenged, if your housing costs are $36,000 per year on January 1st and inflation for the ensuing year is 1,300%, your annual housing costs on December 31st would be $432,000.

Where’s George? Is this going to be the new Washington parlor game for the remaining 22 months and 21 days of this presidency?

Business Friendly? Test: remove the extraneous words from the following headline (hint: they’re the one in single quotes): Fox to Begin a ‘More Business Friendly’ News Channel. Has anyone ever suspected Rupert Murdoch of being anything else?

Great opening lines often cast a huge shadow of mediocrity on all that follows. Therefore, I shall try desperately to confine all of my mediocrity to my opening lines... W. Allan McLeod, March 1998

All Hail Hillary Finally, a presidential candidate who, if elected, will end the war. How much you want to bet that before long, most all candidates, yes, even the R’s, will be running to get on the end the war bandwagon?

Bad Spuds Not even Idaho can escape corporate crooks. John H. Whittier, majority shareholder and former head of Wood River Capital Management has been indicted on charges of engaging in securities fraud that cost investors a cool $88 million, and that ain’t potatoes.

$180 Million A Day By contrast, Exxon and Shell managed to earn a paltry $180 million per day last year. Don’t begrudge them that though, because in a decade or so, these and their sister petrochemical companies will disappear in a cloud of exhaust as gas guzzling countries rush to embrace alternative fuels, and we won’t have to worry about war in the Middle East.

$86,666.66 Per Second No, not more excessive oil looting but the cost of a Super Bowl ad on CBS. Kevin Federline hasn’t been in such high paid company since getting the big Britney boot.

Score Card – Progress Iraq Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he’d done a good job in Iraq. I hope I’m around when they interview the guy who did a bad job. Washington is gearing up for another week of indecision and in-fighting as senators and congressmen try to figure out what’s going on amid the swirl of American and Iraqi misinformation. One thing is clear: those who want the money machine of war to keep on churning will vote to continue the war. One thing is not clear: where are the responsible senators and congressmen who have the guts to end the war now, not in 12 to 18 months, not in six months, NOW! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME. CONTINUING THIS WAR IS THE ONLY DISASTER.

More Gaps at Gap Another CEO has been ousted as The Gap tries to figure out what business to be in. Selling good quality at a fair price with good service usually works. Of course, they first have to decide to whom they want to sell and then buy several hundred millions of dollars in TV ads to let us know if it’s us.

Boston Bombs As everyone in the world now knows, an advertising stunt for Turner Broadcasting, a Time Warner unit, blew up in everyone’s face this past week as panicky Bostonians were sure they had become targets of a terrorist plot. As it turns out, it was nothing more than a couple of creative types having a bad hair day. Red-faced and apologetic, Turner will pick up the $500,000 plus or minus tab that it cost Boston police to defuse the problem. Cheap, considering the millions in free advertising Turner got, and the admiration it no doubt gained from the millions of 18 to 24 year-olds who are the stunt's target market.

HP VII No not another sordid Hewlett-Packard story, but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final J.K. Rowling offering in the (fill in adjectives) best selling series due out in July.

The SEC and Pequot This stinks more each time a new page is turned, and it’s beginning to sound like a few very powerful people need to go to jail. Stay tuned to a news source that isn’t beholding to big business for future developments.

Capitalism and Minimum Wages Isn’t it odd that a minimum wage has to be dictated by government? It seems to me that a company that can’t make enough to pay its employees a decent wage ought not to be in business. $7.50, the new minimum wage standard with which our government can’t seem to come to grips, is a $15,000 a year, OK for teenager pocket money, but try raising a family on that paltry sum.

That’s all for this week, my friends. Do what you can to stop the war.!

Happy Schwartzman to You Steven Schwartzman, founder of Blackstone Partners, an early and hugely successful player in the LBO game, is giving himself a sixtieth birthday party in the Park Avenue Armory, the only place in the city capable of holding the 1,500 close friends he’s invited. Rumor: Rod Stewart, who charges a million or so for private parties, is the surprise entertainment. As far as invited guests, we don’t know who’s going, but we do no some of those who are not. Condoleezza Rice, Edward Kennedy, Colin Powell, and Henry Paulson declined. Henry Kravis, long considered the buyout and art patron king whose crown Schwartzman covets, wasn’t invited. Most everyone else who is stunningly famous or stunningly rich received an invitation.

Any Lobbyists? Pfizer is cutting 7,800 people on top of the 2,200 sales reps previously axed. How much do you want to bet it hasn’t reduced the number of lobbyists slipping free Viagra to our lawmakers.

Score Card – Progress Iraq This is depressing. 22,000 more troops. Come on George, stop jerking us around. Tell the truth. We won’t leave Iraq or the Middle East until Exxon and its sisters tell you it’s OK. And Richard the lyin’ hearted this week exceeded even his own heretofore unbridled hubris by stating flat out that it didn’t matter what Congress of The Senate said or did, more troops were going in. (Note to Richard: YES, IT DOES MATTER. And the Democrats should be hoisted on the petard of their own indecision. Not one Democrat has the cojones to demand immediate and total withdrawal. BRING OUR TROOPS HOME. CONTINUING THIS WAR IS THE ONLY DISASTER.

Too Depressing! A medical device with the galactic sounding name of Neurostar TMS designed to reduce depression doesn’t work. There oughta be a law.

Tortured Canadian Appeased? The Canadian government apologized to Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen wrongly detained by American officials and deported to Syria where he was jailed and tortured for ten months, and paid him $9.75 million as compensation. Like a true Canadian, Arer said he valued the apology more than the money. As far as the United States is concerned, it continues to keep Arer on its terrorist watch list and refuses to allow him into the country.

Still Irked Bob Ney, ex congressman from Ohio is off to prison for thirty months for selling his office to black Jack Abramhoff, the crook lobbyist, BUT HE WILL GET HIS PENSION. Let’s see how this works: get elected, get drunk and party and take bribes, get caught, go to prison, draw a pension.

Passport Poop United States, Canadian, and some Caribbean citizens now need a passport to get into or return to the United States. Mexicans can continue to sneak across the border. The rules for terrorists haven’t been spelled out.

What’s Wrong With This Statement? The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least four Wall Street investment banks as part of a widening investigation into the multi-billion-dollar online gambling industry. Isn’t Wall Street the biggest poker game in town?

It’s My Insula So you quit smoking 25 years ago and still have the craving, blame your insula, a tiny part of your brain (isn’t it always) that scientists now believe is responsible for certain addictive traits. Before you flush the nicotine gum and patches, though, what they haven’t figured out is how to make adjustments short of a peen to the bean.

No Money Honey Funny Stuff Any attempt to suggest Maria Bartiromo, one of the finest financial reporters on TV, is in bed with CitiCorp or any other company that she covers is absurd. What possible difference can it make if she accepts an occasional, completely above-board lift home on a private jet, other than she might find out something juicy that we want to know? She would tell us, wouldn’t she?

Libby Lobs Betrayal Bomb Are attorneys for Lewis I. Libby, Darth Dick’s former chief of staff, suggesting that this administration is going to let Libby take the fall to protect Carl Rove, Prince George’s political advisor? Betrayal and untruths by this administration, hard to believe. And remind me again why Carl Rove is important?

Rams Ramming Rams Scientists have been trying to figure out why some rams prefer rams and what makes them that way. I could have had them call my Scottish ancestors for their answer, but hey, I’m still wondering where virgin wool comes from.

That’s all for this week, my friends. Do what you can to stop the war.!

Don’t Fence Me In Rather than build a fence along the US/Mexico border (a really dumb idea) why not build a fence around Washington, DC?

Bank Robbers Now it seems the Pentagon and CIA, in addition to the FBI, are secretly taking ‘suspicious’ citizens’ bank records and storing them in a giant, anti-terrorist data base. So much for the ‘liberty’ part.

Score Card – Progress Iraq Lieberman (IND - CT) says the Middle East will implode if the US leaves Iraq before Iraq is stabilized, and that would be a disaster. True, but it is not our disaster, it is theirs. To suggest otherwise is to suggest they aren’t capable of reaching independent decisions. And to suggest the terrorists will follow us home is nothing more than an attempt to incite irrational fear and suggest our military incapable of defending its homeland. This administration seems hell bent for election to have us believe that troop withdrawal from Iraq is somehow a military defeat. It is an administration defeat. Our military has won its war.

100 Hours? Wouldn’t it have been really great if the Democrats 100 hour clock contained the same hours as our Iraqi troop’s clock? Wouldn’t it have been really great if the Democrats ended the war within their first 100 hours? Wouldn’t it have been really great if the Democrats hadn’t stopped making us believe they were going to make a difference within their first 100 hours?

XXX Pentagon vs ABA Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the nation’s top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms’ corporate clients should consider ending their business ties. The legal community, as well they should have, let out an uproar. Shame on Stimson for this treacherous disregard of American values; he should be fired. Write your representative http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml and senator http://www.senate.gov/ and express your outrage.

That’s all for this week, my friends. God speed and safe home for ALL troops!