Update from the Heartland
No.522
12.12.11 – 18.12.11
Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/
To all,
The follow-up news items:
-- At 13:15 [C] {04:15 [S] CST}, Thursday, 15.December.2011, General Lloyd James Austin III, U.S. Army, Commanding General United States Forces – Iraq, cased the colors at a ceremony in Baghdad, Iraq, as United States officially ended Operation NEW DAWN [455] and the Battle for Iraq. After the sanctions of both the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 [PL 107-243; 116 Stat. 1498] and UN Resolution 1441, the battle began on 19.March.2003, with Operation IRAQI FREEDOM [069], which in turn closed and transitioned on 31.August.2010. {8 years, 8 months, 23 days; 4,487 KIA; 32,326 WIA; US$832B in treasure}
Child pornography and sexual abuse are extraordinarily sensitive, volatile and explosive issues, as rightly they should be. Unfortunately, sometimes our emotions short-circuit our reasoning and cloud our judgment. A friend and long-time contributor to this humble forum sent along the link to this article that re-opened the question. I presume there was foreknowledge that it would trigger my curiosity; so it did.
“Sex-Crazed Maniacs or Innocents? On the Media's Hysterical Reaction to Teen Sexuality – Another media panic about teen sex has been contradicted by an actual study”
by Tracy Clark-Flory
Salon
Published: December 7, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/sex/153353
The article provided links to two different articles and led into a recent study of teen sexting – the practice of sending text or images with sexual content via electronic media. The study at issue was:
“The True Prevalence of ‘Sexting’”
by Kaitlin Lounsbury, Kimberly J. Mitchell & David Finkelhor
Crimes against Children Research Center
University of New Hampshire
Published: April 2011
http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/Sexting Fact Sheet 4_29_11.pdf
The Lounsbury assessment reviewed and summarized the five other known studies related to the question of sexting among minor children. They concluded and advised, “[T]here are no consistent and reliable findings at this time to estimate the true prevalence of the problem [i.e., minor child sexting].” The caution applies not just to the Press, but to all legislators (federal to local) tempted to pass more laws “to defend our children.” We have too many intrusive laws as it is; we do not need more. My reviews of both higher court rulings in the case against Michael Williams remain valid and applicable in this topic [Update number in trailing brackets, if you wish to review].
United States v. Williams [11CCA no. 04-15128 (2006)] [308]
United States v. Williams [553 U.S. ___ (2008)] [338]
The 11th Circuit got it right; the Supremes did not. Nonetheless, my collateral reading sought to put the Lounsbury study in some form of perspective and took me into the law. Like most well-intentioned, noble causes, the first law specifically prohibiting child pornography – Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977 [PL 95-225; 92 Stat. 7 (6.February.1978)] – began with interstate transportation or transmission of sexually explicit material involving children (<18 years old). A progression of laws ensued and expanded the reach of the Federal government, and culminated in the law at issue in Williams – Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 (PROTECT Act) [PL 108-021; 117 Stat. 650 (30.April.2003)]. It was buried in the Finding section of the PROTECT Act that got me fired up. Title V, Subtitle A, §501 – Findings [117 Stat. 650, 676], item (12) states, “ Child pornography results from the abuse of real children by sex offenders; the production of child pornography is a byproduct of, and not the primary reason for, the sexual abuse of children.” Then, in §502 – Improvements To Prohibition on Virtual Child Pornography [117 Stat. 650, 678], based on the Findings, Congress expanded the law to make sexting punishable as child pornography, and prosecutors have not hesitated to use the law. This is where I use the Italian admonition – Basta! I appreciate the motives of Congress and their noble purpose of protecting our children, but the government cannot and should not supersede the responsibility and accountability of parents, and carving away more and more of our precious freedom, even in the name of such a noble purpose is simply not acceptable and otherwise intolerable. It is long past the time we must shed the Victorian-era morality that is the basis of laws like the PROTECT Act. The times they are a-changin’. Beyond the obvious, this perhaps peripheral issue probably does not affect us. Well, as is so often the case, oppression comes from obtuse directions and myriad disguises. Permanently branding a 12-year-old child as a sex offender or worse a sexual predator simply because they send a sexually suggestive text message or digital image to another 12-year-old is excessive, and just flat wrong. Sexting is not a crime. If anything, it is a failure of parenting. We must get the government out of our private lives.
Finally, we have a definitive inside view of the corruption and obscene hypocrisy that has plagued Congress for several decades.
“McCaskill-led earmark probe finds $834 million in requests”
by Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post
Published: December 10, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mccaskill-led-earmark-probe-finds-834-million-in-requests/2011/12/08/gIQAl0MrlO_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
The McCaskill study dealt with only one piece of legislation – H.R.1540, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. They identified 115 earmarks, totaling US$834M million in unrequested, new spending. The study offered numerous specific examples, most of which were cleverly masqueraded in implied helpful words. This is just one bill, but it reflects on how mutated, compromised and contaminated our political process has become.
“Married couples at a record low”
by Carol Morello
Washington Post
Published: December 13, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/married-couples-at-a-record-low/2011/12/13/gIQAnJyYsO_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
A definition of insanity is continuing to do what we have always done and expecting a different outcome. The Victorian-era notion of marriage has prevailed within the United States for more than a century. We can discuss and argue the basis for those expectations, standards and guidelines. Let it suffice to say, the environment that produced those expectations no longer has any relevance to contemporary life. As I have said more than a few times, over a wide variety of social issues, we need to grow up. Just because something was appropriate for our great grand parents does not inherently mean it is appropriate for us. We must rationally adjust to the world in which we live rather than carry on some lame desire to preserve what was done more than a hundred years ago. So it is here.
First, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) claimed to have shot down an American RQ-170 drone. Then, they decided, no they did not shoot it down, rather their superior electronic technology took control of a CIA-operated, RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone and forced it to make a belly landing in the eastern Iranian desert. As expected, the U.S. government has said very little publicly other than to acknowledge the loss of a drone along the Afghan-Iranian border. The IRI Revolutionary Guard displayed what they claimed was the highly classified, flying wing, stealth drone. I doubt the IRI claims. I am also disappointed that such sensitive machines do not have autonomous return to base flight guidance systems (that were demonstrated 25 years ago) or self-destruct systems to prevent compromise of advanced technology. Oh well, let’s just give this technology to Russia and China, and avoid all this in-between nonsense.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed civil suit (the SEC has no authority to file criminal charges) against six former Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executives over false disclosures they made about subprime loans. Named in the legal action were: Freddie Mac former CEO Richard Syron, former executive vice president Patricia Cook, and former senior vice president Donald Bisenius; and, Fannie Mae former CEO Daniel Mudd, former chief risk officer Enrico Dallavecchia, and former executive vice president Thomas Lund. The SEC complaint states, “This action arises out of a series of materially false and misleading public disclosures.” The agency seeks unspecified damages against the defendants. The Justice Department is reportedly still considering criminal charges against the executives.
Just a footnote: I doubt we will see any civil or criminal charges against Members of Congress that enabled and encouraged the “flexible underwriting standards.” [521] Those perpetrators or at least contributors to the economic crisis and collapse of the housing market will claim a noble purpose and no culpability; however, they are just as involved as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives. Such is life.
News from the economic front:
-- The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) reported on the 2008 failure of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS), and recommended that major acquisitions by U.K. banks should be subject to regulatory approval and bank bosses should face penalties, if their institution fails. The FSA report claims RBS managers made “multiple poor decisions” when they pursued an ill-fated takeover of European lender ABN Amro in 2007 that ultimately led to a £45.5B (US$71.3B) bailout by U.K. taxpayers.
-- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) apparently reached a deal with three former executives of Washington Mutual in a civil suit, stemming from the biggest-ever U.S. bank failure. The government will reportedly recover a mere 8.3% of the US$900M lost in the bank’s failure with most of the recovery coming from insurers and the bank’s estate – not from the pockets of the former executives. Again, there is no sign of criminal charges from the Justice Department, yet. The deal would mark another setback for the government in a high-profile, financial-crisis-related case. It is most unfortunate there are not more judges like Jed Rakoff [520]. These guys bought their way out of prison. WTF, as the kids say.
-- The U.S. Federal Reserve Open Market Committee voted 9-1 to keep the bank's easy-credit policies unchanged for the second meeting in a row and offered an assessment of the economy that was guardedly more upbeat, but still marked by “significant downside risks.”
Comments and contributions from Update no.521:
Comment to the Blog:
“I’m glad your team won.
“I think your source, Stan Liebowitz, has a bit of a misplaced focus. According to his professional web page http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/ , Mr. or Dr. Liebowitz is a professor of economics at the University of Texas, but his listing of courses taught matches his list of available papers, which he describes as “articles relating to file-sharing and intellectual property issues, path dependence, network externalities, and the Justice Department investigation of Microsoft,” none of which deals with macro-level economics. The issue I have is that his analysis does not follow the big money. I would not excuse local bankers for selling mortgages to people who could never afford to pay and never claimed that ability. I would also never absolve Congress for passing laws damaging to all of us except the biggest bankers. However, those are effects, not causes. The cause is too-big-to-fail banks inventing increasingly complex, risky, and profitable financial instruments. That’s where the big profits from those mortgages went, and also the big-money bailout the bankers counted on to force the government to assume the risk. Of course, I have no issue with any of these parties replacing drug users and prostitutes in prisons.
“My central source on economics lately is Simon Johnson, who has been the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is currently a professor of economics at Sloan School of Management, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, and a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Panel of Economic Advisors. I recommend his book 13 Bankers and his blog Baseline Scenario.
“I wonder whether Standard and Poor’s and their competitors have an appropriate place in rating sovereign debt. Beyond the fact that their measurement systems are geared to corporate offerings and fit poorly with the conditions of governments, an additional issue is their role in the economic collapse. Those junky mortgages we’re discussing were packaged and the packages received ratings from S & P and their brethren that convinced investors they were sound investments. Said ratings were based mostly on the fact that the people selling the packages being rated paid for the rating service in a competitive market; the ratings were as poor quality as the securities themselves. More candidates for beds in the Federal prison system.
“I wonder what has slowed the Chinese economy. Perhaps their customers in the US and the EU are just not buying anything recently. Huawei, the Chinese telecom company serving the Iran government, shows good business sense in limiting their exposure to the drama of radical government.
“I did not mean to excuse anyone in my comment from last week. The point of my comment was pretty much exactly what you said: the bankers saw terrible risks as benign. “Willful blindness” is a legal term which essentially means, “you’re liable whether or not you admit to knowing what you should have known.” The purpose of reading the book is to understand and to know what to guard against, both in one’s own conduct and in working with others. Willful blindness is an important force in people’s actions in general, not just on Wall Street, in Congress, or at your local mortgage lender.”
My response to the Blog:
Thx mate . . . always nice to win. Eventually, we will lose. An awesome rivalry among comrades.
I would encourage you to read the Liebowitz essay. He does not let the bankers off the hook, but they were not the root cause of the mortgage meltdown; the greedy bastards just sought to profit on whatever happened. We are in agreement on “too big to fail”; break up the big banks using the Sherman Antitrust Act [PL 51-190; 26 Stat. 209] to end the grip those banks have on the U.S., and return to the separations delineated in the Banking Act of 1933 [PL 73-066; 48 Stat. 162]. I just do not think we can lay the blame for the mortgage meltdown on the big banks.
I will look for Simon Johnson’s work.
Amen! All three primary rating agencies gave those mortgage-based securities their highest ratings, which certainly tainted their processes and judgment. The rating agencies were culpable as enablers of the meltdown.
Re: Huawei & Iran. I would like to think the Chinese felt the pressure of the world community. Who knows their reason? It is still a good sign.
Re: “Willful Blindness.” Indeed! Spot on! ‘Nuf said.
. . . round two:
“The too big to fail banks clearly do not bear sole responsibility, but they were the driving factor.”
. . . my response to round two:
Re: “the driver.” I just do not see it. I could accept “major” factor. They are certainly culpable, as I expect we will see in the outcome of SEC v. Citigroup. I still put most of the weight at the individual level, with the Federal government very close behind. The banks sought to make a profit on the tragedy.
. . . round three:
“You'll see it if you follow the money. That simplifies many things, including this crash.”
. . . my response to round three:
I’ll keep looking.
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
The follow-up news items:
-- At 13:15 [C] {04:15 [S] CST}, Thursday, 15.December.2011, General Lloyd James Austin III, U.S. Army, Commanding General United States Forces – Iraq, cased the colors at a ceremony in Baghdad, Iraq, as United States officially ended Operation NEW DAWN [455] and the Battle for Iraq. After the sanctions of both the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 [PL 107-243; 116 Stat. 1498] and UN Resolution 1441, the battle began on 19.March.2003, with Operation IRAQI FREEDOM [069], which in turn closed and transitioned on 31.August.2010. {8 years, 8 months, 23 days; 4,487 KIA; 32,326 WIA; US$832B in treasure}
Child pornography and sexual abuse are extraordinarily sensitive, volatile and explosive issues, as rightly they should be. Unfortunately, sometimes our emotions short-circuit our reasoning and cloud our judgment. A friend and long-time contributor to this humble forum sent along the link to this article that re-opened the question. I presume there was foreknowledge that it would trigger my curiosity; so it did.
“Sex-Crazed Maniacs or Innocents? On the Media's Hysterical Reaction to Teen Sexuality – Another media panic about teen sex has been contradicted by an actual study”
by Tracy Clark-Flory
Salon
Published: December 7, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/sex/153353
The article provided links to two different articles and led into a recent study of teen sexting – the practice of sending text or images with sexual content via electronic media. The study at issue was:
“The True Prevalence of ‘Sexting’”
by Kaitlin Lounsbury, Kimberly J. Mitchell & David Finkelhor
Crimes against Children Research Center
University of New Hampshire
Published: April 2011
http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/Sexting Fact Sheet 4_29_11.pdf
The Lounsbury assessment reviewed and summarized the five other known studies related to the question of sexting among minor children. They concluded and advised, “[T]here are no consistent and reliable findings at this time to estimate the true prevalence of the problem [i.e., minor child sexting].” The caution applies not just to the Press, but to all legislators (federal to local) tempted to pass more laws “to defend our children.” We have too many intrusive laws as it is; we do not need more. My reviews of both higher court rulings in the case against Michael Williams remain valid and applicable in this topic [Update number in trailing brackets, if you wish to review].
United States v. Williams [11CCA no. 04-15128 (2006)] [308]
United States v. Williams [553 U.S. ___ (2008)] [338]
The 11th Circuit got it right; the Supremes did not. Nonetheless, my collateral reading sought to put the Lounsbury study in some form of perspective and took me into the law. Like most well-intentioned, noble causes, the first law specifically prohibiting child pornography – Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977 [PL 95-225; 92 Stat. 7 (6.February.1978)] – began with interstate transportation or transmission of sexually explicit material involving children (<18 years old). A progression of laws ensued and expanded the reach of the Federal government, and culminated in the law at issue in Williams – Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 (PROTECT Act) [PL 108-021; 117 Stat. 650 (30.April.2003)]. It was buried in the Finding section of the PROTECT Act that got me fired up. Title V, Subtitle A, §501 – Findings [117 Stat. 650, 676], item (12) states, “ Child pornography results from the abuse of real children by sex offenders; the production of child pornography is a byproduct of, and not the primary reason for, the sexual abuse of children.” Then, in §502 – Improvements To Prohibition on Virtual Child Pornography [117 Stat. 650, 678], based on the Findings, Congress expanded the law to make sexting punishable as child pornography, and prosecutors have not hesitated to use the law. This is where I use the Italian admonition – Basta! I appreciate the motives of Congress and their noble purpose of protecting our children, but the government cannot and should not supersede the responsibility and accountability of parents, and carving away more and more of our precious freedom, even in the name of such a noble purpose is simply not acceptable and otherwise intolerable. It is long past the time we must shed the Victorian-era morality that is the basis of laws like the PROTECT Act. The times they are a-changin’. Beyond the obvious, this perhaps peripheral issue probably does not affect us. Well, as is so often the case, oppression comes from obtuse directions and myriad disguises. Permanently branding a 12-year-old child as a sex offender or worse a sexual predator simply because they send a sexually suggestive text message or digital image to another 12-year-old is excessive, and just flat wrong. Sexting is not a crime. If anything, it is a failure of parenting. We must get the government out of our private lives.
Finally, we have a definitive inside view of the corruption and obscene hypocrisy that has plagued Congress for several decades.
“McCaskill-led earmark probe finds $834 million in requests”
by Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post
Published: December 10, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mccaskill-led-earmark-probe-finds-834-million-in-requests/2011/12/08/gIQAl0MrlO_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
The McCaskill study dealt with only one piece of legislation – H.R.1540, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. They identified 115 earmarks, totaling US$834M million in unrequested, new spending. The study offered numerous specific examples, most of which were cleverly masqueraded in implied helpful words. This is just one bill, but it reflects on how mutated, compromised and contaminated our political process has become.
“Married couples at a record low”
by Carol Morello
Washington Post
Published: December 13, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/married-couples-at-a-record-low/2011/12/13/gIQAnJyYsO_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
A definition of insanity is continuing to do what we have always done and expecting a different outcome. The Victorian-era notion of marriage has prevailed within the United States for more than a century. We can discuss and argue the basis for those expectations, standards and guidelines. Let it suffice to say, the environment that produced those expectations no longer has any relevance to contemporary life. As I have said more than a few times, over a wide variety of social issues, we need to grow up. Just because something was appropriate for our great grand parents does not inherently mean it is appropriate for us. We must rationally adjust to the world in which we live rather than carry on some lame desire to preserve what was done more than a hundred years ago. So it is here.
First, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) claimed to have shot down an American RQ-170 drone. Then, they decided, no they did not shoot it down, rather their superior electronic technology took control of a CIA-operated, RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone and forced it to make a belly landing in the eastern Iranian desert. As expected, the U.S. government has said very little publicly other than to acknowledge the loss of a drone along the Afghan-Iranian border. The IRI Revolutionary Guard displayed what they claimed was the highly classified, flying wing, stealth drone. I doubt the IRI claims. I am also disappointed that such sensitive machines do not have autonomous return to base flight guidance systems (that were demonstrated 25 years ago) or self-destruct systems to prevent compromise of advanced technology. Oh well, let’s just give this technology to Russia and China, and avoid all this in-between nonsense.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed civil suit (the SEC has no authority to file criminal charges) against six former Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executives over false disclosures they made about subprime loans. Named in the legal action were: Freddie Mac former CEO Richard Syron, former executive vice president Patricia Cook, and former senior vice president Donald Bisenius; and, Fannie Mae former CEO Daniel Mudd, former chief risk officer Enrico Dallavecchia, and former executive vice president Thomas Lund. The SEC complaint states, “This action arises out of a series of materially false and misleading public disclosures.” The agency seeks unspecified damages against the defendants. The Justice Department is reportedly still considering criminal charges against the executives.
Just a footnote: I doubt we will see any civil or criminal charges against Members of Congress that enabled and encouraged the “flexible underwriting standards.” [521] Those perpetrators or at least contributors to the economic crisis and collapse of the housing market will claim a noble purpose and no culpability; however, they are just as involved as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives. Such is life.
News from the economic front:
-- The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) reported on the 2008 failure of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS), and recommended that major acquisitions by U.K. banks should be subject to regulatory approval and bank bosses should face penalties, if their institution fails. The FSA report claims RBS managers made “multiple poor decisions” when they pursued an ill-fated takeover of European lender ABN Amro in 2007 that ultimately led to a £45.5B (US$71.3B) bailout by U.K. taxpayers.
-- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) apparently reached a deal with three former executives of Washington Mutual in a civil suit, stemming from the biggest-ever U.S. bank failure. The government will reportedly recover a mere 8.3% of the US$900M lost in the bank’s failure with most of the recovery coming from insurers and the bank’s estate – not from the pockets of the former executives. Again, there is no sign of criminal charges from the Justice Department, yet. The deal would mark another setback for the government in a high-profile, financial-crisis-related case. It is most unfortunate there are not more judges like Jed Rakoff [520]. These guys bought their way out of prison. WTF, as the kids say.
-- The U.S. Federal Reserve Open Market Committee voted 9-1 to keep the bank's easy-credit policies unchanged for the second meeting in a row and offered an assessment of the economy that was guardedly more upbeat, but still marked by “significant downside risks.”
Comments and contributions from Update no.521:
Comment to the Blog:
“I’m glad your team won.
“I think your source, Stan Liebowitz, has a bit of a misplaced focus. According to his professional web page http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/ , Mr. or Dr. Liebowitz is a professor of economics at the University of Texas, but his listing of courses taught matches his list of available papers, which he describes as “articles relating to file-sharing and intellectual property issues, path dependence, network externalities, and the Justice Department investigation of Microsoft,” none of which deals with macro-level economics. The issue I have is that his analysis does not follow the big money. I would not excuse local bankers for selling mortgages to people who could never afford to pay and never claimed that ability. I would also never absolve Congress for passing laws damaging to all of us except the biggest bankers. However, those are effects, not causes. The cause is too-big-to-fail banks inventing increasingly complex, risky, and profitable financial instruments. That’s where the big profits from those mortgages went, and also the big-money bailout the bankers counted on to force the government to assume the risk. Of course, I have no issue with any of these parties replacing drug users and prostitutes in prisons.
“My central source on economics lately is Simon Johnson, who has been the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is currently a professor of economics at Sloan School of Management, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, and a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Panel of Economic Advisors. I recommend his book 13 Bankers and his blog Baseline Scenario.
“I wonder whether Standard and Poor’s and their competitors have an appropriate place in rating sovereign debt. Beyond the fact that their measurement systems are geared to corporate offerings and fit poorly with the conditions of governments, an additional issue is their role in the economic collapse. Those junky mortgages we’re discussing were packaged and the packages received ratings from S & P and their brethren that convinced investors they were sound investments. Said ratings were based mostly on the fact that the people selling the packages being rated paid for the rating service in a competitive market; the ratings were as poor quality as the securities themselves. More candidates for beds in the Federal prison system.
“I wonder what has slowed the Chinese economy. Perhaps their customers in the US and the EU are just not buying anything recently. Huawei, the Chinese telecom company serving the Iran government, shows good business sense in limiting their exposure to the drama of radical government.
“I did not mean to excuse anyone in my comment from last week. The point of my comment was pretty much exactly what you said: the bankers saw terrible risks as benign. “Willful blindness” is a legal term which essentially means, “you’re liable whether or not you admit to knowing what you should have known.” The purpose of reading the book is to understand and to know what to guard against, both in one’s own conduct and in working with others. Willful blindness is an important force in people’s actions in general, not just on Wall Street, in Congress, or at your local mortgage lender.”
My response to the Blog:
Thx mate . . . always nice to win. Eventually, we will lose. An awesome rivalry among comrades.
I would encourage you to read the Liebowitz essay. He does not let the bankers off the hook, but they were not the root cause of the mortgage meltdown; the greedy bastards just sought to profit on whatever happened. We are in agreement on “too big to fail”; break up the big banks using the Sherman Antitrust Act [PL 51-190; 26 Stat. 209] to end the grip those banks have on the U.S., and return to the separations delineated in the Banking Act of 1933 [PL 73-066; 48 Stat. 162]. I just do not think we can lay the blame for the mortgage meltdown on the big banks.
I will look for Simon Johnson’s work.
Amen! All three primary rating agencies gave those mortgage-based securities their highest ratings, which certainly tainted their processes and judgment. The rating agencies were culpable as enablers of the meltdown.
Re: Huawei & Iran. I would like to think the Chinese felt the pressure of the world community. Who knows their reason? It is still a good sign.
Re: “Willful Blindness.” Indeed! Spot on! ‘Nuf said.
. . . round two:
“The too big to fail banks clearly do not bear sole responsibility, but they were the driving factor.”
. . . my response to round two:
Re: “the driver.” I just do not see it. I could accept “major” factor. They are certainly culpable, as I expect we will see in the outcome of SEC v. Citigroup. I still put most of the weight at the individual level, with the Federal government very close behind. The banks sought to make a profit on the tragedy.
. . . round three:
“You'll see it if you follow the money. That simplifies many things, including this crash.”
. . . my response to round three:
I’ll keep looking.
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
2 comments:
I will admit that the whole “sexting” uproar horrifies me. Not the act, which apparently is not especially common anyhow. What horrifies me is the notion that teenagers can be convicted of a crime and labeled sex offenders simply because they are sexual beings. When a person takes and sends pictures of herself (or himself) to a sexual partner, how is that “exploitation”? If I took such a picture of a young girl and sold it or misused it somehow, that would be exploitation. If she takes it and sends it to someone about whom she cares, that’s part of her relationship. Claiming she has exploited someone is utter nonsense and can be safely ignored. Sexting is indeed naïve, at least in some cases; some boys (it’s usually boys) will show pictures of their nude girlfriend(s) to their dimwit buddies, whether the pictures appear on a phone, on the Internet, or on paper. A very few of those receiving pictures will find ways to sell them, which can cause real harm to the person pictured. Ever since the invention of cameras, some girls have suffered from the abuse of their pictures. These sexting laws do not punish the abusers; they punish the naïve. The fact is those laws punish young people for admitting to having a sexual life. Certainly, the punishment far exceeds the “crime.” The label of “sex offender” damages the person for more than the abuse of the picture and again these laws punish the victim, not the offender.
I share your view of the Victorian-era model of marriage as outmoded. My views in this are colored by having survived as a child in my parents’ “’til death do us part” marriage. Nobody who witnessed it can explain to me why they did not divorce or simply leave, and I came to believe that marriage should be considered much more carefully than is usually the case.
I see no way to believe that the public will ever have accurate knowledge about the downing of the US drone in Iran. I will not speculate on that.
Perhaps the Justice Department could divert some funds from the pursuit of next year’s pot crop to use for an investigation of Wall Street et al. We can find room in Federal prisons for at least a few hundred bankers, brokers and politicians. I do not share your pessimism about convicting Members of Congress. Residents of Louisiana and Illinois know very well that Governors can be made to do time. US Representatives and Senators can be prosecuted just as well and can also live out the Beretta theme, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
Apparently the SEC has dropped the ball on another settlement. Here’s an opportunity for another judge to serve the cause of justice by disallowing this crime.
Calvin,
Re: “sexting.” Very well said. I see little difference between a betrayal of confidence regardless of the medium. The “injury” to the naïve as you say is the expectation society creates that 1.) children (<18yo) cannot be sexual, and 2.) nudity is shameful. These are holdover notions from the Victorian-era morality. Punishing a minor for being sexual is tantamount to punishing a child for being human.
Re: “marriage.” We share the same view. Looking at unhappy marriages inevitably brings me to question the unreasonable, societal expectation of marriage as though it is some magical domain of happily every after. Marriage is not particularly difference from a business contract, and yet we rely upon “love” for the decision rather than due diligence.
Re: “drone.” True, we may never know what happened . . . at least for the next 20-50 years, until the information is declassified.
Re: “prosecution of bankers.” Very well said again. Truth be told, the damage done by “flexible underwriting standards,” sub-prime mortgage lending, bundled mortgage-based securities and their associated derivatives, et al ad infinitum ad nauseum, did orders of magnitude more damage to the American economy, the World economy, and countless numbers of citizens that psychotropic substance consumption will ever do; but, we throw the pot-head in prison and let the bankers walk away with their millions & billions of ill-gotten gains. It just ain’t right!
Re: “SEC settlement.” Unfortunately, we simply do not have enough judges like Jed Rakoff. The alternative would be a law that specifically prohibits out of court settlements in financial malfeasance cases.
“That’s just my opinion, but I could be wrong.”
Cheers,
Cap
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