The most sensible argument against same-sex marriage

Gawker TV “balla macka wonk filla hiren”:

The financial regulatory & lobbyist rats are fleeing

Mission accomplished, I suppose.

The lobbyist rats that helped the fatten the cats are leaving the ship: former banking lobbyist John Dugan will leave the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency after a 5 year term during which he looked the other way & ignored consumer complaints.

According to Dugan he was “an effective crisis manager, worked to soften the impact of financial turmoil on national banks and sounded off on certain regulatory issues relevant to those banks, such as the need for better loan underwriting and the risk of being too reliant on commercial real estate lending”. LOL.

All evidence to the contrary. Chris Whalen:

“The OCC bears a large part of responsibility for the subprime fiasco because not only were large banks involved in the purchase and securitization of subprime, they were also involved in the derivatives and CDOs,”

Meanwhile a change at John Dugan’s former employer, banking lobby firm, the ABA:

“After 25 years at ABA, I believe this is the best time to create the opportunity for new leadership,” Yingling said in statement.

The move comes as Congress is on the verge of passing broad financial regulatory legislation. Like most of the industry, the ABA lobbied aggressively against many of the provisions.

I wonder what new industries & people they’ll screw over in retirement.

It’s true: tax cuts for the rich create jobs. It’s just not in this country

I didn’t hear a peep about this in the business media:

[The] results of the 2010 Global Venture Capital Survey conducted by the NVCA and Deloitte have made this shrinkage in the U.S. all the more clear — but it also shows how venture capital is on the rise in emergingmarkets like China, India and South America. In all, 500 venture capitalists were surveyed.

But they’ll low taxes on any profits that they make from successful companies created in China & India. Awesome.

Or how US banks – backed with huge tax cuts for the executives and for the firms – are aiding the UK economy to recover:

U.S. banks have paid the majority of the $3.81B that the British government have collected from its bonus tax. Nice. Remember – the talent will flee to Dubai if we tax them.

Or:

BYD Auto, one of China’s most ambitious electric-vehicle makers, just stretched its reach a bit further. Backed with $250 million from none other than Warren Buffett, the company was already prepping its all-electric E6 sedan for the U.S. market by the end of 2010. Now it’s looking to carve out a niche for itself in the growing home energy management market,

Warren Buffet’s effective tax rate is around 15%. And he created jobs in China. Awesome.

The Simpsons: “Welcome to Israel: Your American Tax Dollars at work”

AIPAC’s panties in a bunch:

The Economist laments the death of Ayatollah Fadlallah. CNN fires correspondent for same.

I am guessing that CNN’s rating are going through the roof as I speak because every fucking teanut is tuning in impressed by CNN caving in to right-wing faux outrage:

That was in the midst of Lebanon’s gruelling civil war, from 1975 to 1990. Yet Mr Fadlallah had mellowed, long before his death on July 4th at the age of 74. Once damned by Westerners as a mentor to hostage-takers and suicide-bombers, he was viewed by his own flock as the most open-minded of ayatollahs. He boldly championed women’s rights. He preached the duty of Muslims to fight foreign invaders but counselled Iraqis to be patient with the Americans who had rid them of Saddam Hussein. He immediately and unequivocally condemned the 9/11 attacks on America, the first leading Muslim cleric to do so.

When The Economist later spoke to him, he opened the conversation by thanking Western countries for giving refuge and freedom of worship to many Muslims. Visitors to his modest office in the Dahiya, Beirut’s dense, Shia-dominated southern suburb, were often surprised to find Sunni Muslims and even Christians seeking guidance from the sage.

The reason we are losing in Afghanistan: islamofacist monkeys!

Is it April 1 in China? NY Mag:

According to a report from a Chinese news site, the Taliban has been training monkey soldiers to fight American troops in Afghanistan. The source for this claim seems to be an unnamed “British-based media agency” and some photos on the Internet of monkeys holding guns.

Fox “News” is gonna run with it and recommend erecting borders to keep terrorist monkeys from entering our borders and infiltrating our zoos

The bank lobby’s new objection to fin reform: it’ll make banks waste paper

The ABA is so green that they oppose fin reform on grounds that it’ll waste paper:

ABA: Reform Bill to Generate Over 5,000 Pages of Regs for Traditional Banks
In related news, ABA projected yesterday that the regulatory reform bill (H.R. 4173) will generate more than 5,000 pages of new regulations for traditional banks. The projection does not include the parts of the legislation that focus on Wall Street, nonbank institutions or other matters. “Congress consistently underestimates the complexity and size of the regulations resulting from new laws,” ABA President and CEO Ed Yingling said.

Wow. That’s scary. Why does the government have to make banks suffer like this? There’s so much reading. Their heads may ache. But, wait:

The projection is not scientific

Oh. So, its just another one of the ABA’s usual made up bullshit.

Huzzah to caller Bill from Waterbury, MA to make this point: “I cant believe how fickle the American people are”

Caller to Week in the News on On the Point with Tom Ashbrook:

“I can’t believe how fickle the American people are. Everything that’s going on even within the last week with the oil spill, and the war in Afghanistan, financial reform. These are all legacies of the Bush administration. And and year and half into the Obama administration, for the American people to be saying he’s not cutting it, his poll numbers are dropping is outrageous. You can’t undo years of malfeasence and incompetence in a year and half of the Obama presidency. I can’t believe how people are turning on so quickly”

Predictably, the village pundit queen pooh-poohed this opinion and said Obama’s own this economy, the MMS, etc. In summary: time given for GOP to fuck everything up = 30 years. Time given for D POTUS to fix every GOP clusterf&*k = 6 months.

Thanks, liberal media.

Bigger thanks to Bill from Waterbury, MA. Keep up the good fight, friend.

Joe Barton (dbag-TX), Peter Wallison (Liar-AEI) apologize to Morgan Stanley

I am sure the democrats, the poor owe an apology to Morgan Stanley for this Massachusetts style shakedown.

Dealbook:

Morgan Stanley agreed Thursday to pay $102 million to end an investigation in Massachusetts into unfair lending practices, Reuters reports.

Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, said Morgan Stanley improperly loaned billions of dollars to the subprime mortgage lender New Century Financial, which then sold loans to unqualified borrowers. Morgan Stanley also packaged these loans and sold them to big investors like pension funds.

Aggressive lending practices helped inflate the housing market, which later crashed, paving the way to the devastating financial crisis. Massachusetts lenders were especially hard-hit by these risky practices, and state and federal regulators have probed the matter aggressively here.

Amazon’s welfare program

Amazon doesn’t to compete with local firms & pay taxes. And now it wants  taxpayers to fund its cheap delivery. Via Slashdot:

Online retailer giant Amazon.com has come out against a US Postal Service proposal to end Saturday service, part of efforts to address the USPS budget deficit. ‘Amazon’s customers have come to appreciate and expect Saturday delivery,’ explained Amazon VP Paul Misener. ‘If the five-day delivery proposal is not withdrawn,’ he added, ‘we ask that Congress ensure that Saturday delivery be maintained.’ In the past, Amazon has argued that it should not have to help support public services in states in which it has no physical presence.” The article adds, “Interestingly, online DVD service Netflix is backing the plan to end Saturday mail delivery, arguing that a ‘well functioning’ Postal Service is more important than ‘maintaining current delivery frequency.’”

Nice. I am sure they want government to stay out of their way, too.