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In other words, inside the Beltway, if the dollar numbers associated with shenanigans are big enough, they don’t call it a “crime,” they simply call it “policy.” That is, past a certain point, the money amounts are so huge that the whole system is implicated in the corruption. And nobody in DC wants to see that, lest the taxpayers out in flyover country start to wonder if there’s something systemically wrong with Washington. And so, through the power of spin, and with the complicity of the MSM, massively awful actions--the bank bailouts being the most spectacular example--are declared to be...

Many speak; but not nearly enough listening. More must 'wake up' and damn the bonds of political correctness - restore 'critical mind' - so that America can recover it's original-intent purpose. Lt.Gen. Jerry Boykin; 'Special Forces'; Green Beret. . .taught at Hampden-Sydney; now Exec.Vice President/Family Rersearch Council - 'owns' his credentials; and so, has both credibility and authority. A video link to share. Lt.Gen.Boykin: marxist insurgency link Further hand/in/hand verification: http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/why

FORMER GOLDMAN BANKER: I Miss The Great Recession Already Michael, Bankers AnonymousJanuary 24, 2013 I’m just going to come out and say it, ok? I miss the Great Recession already. I miss it for two reasons: first as an investor and second as a human. The Investment Side of the Great Recession As an investor, the Great Recession represented the good times, now past.[1] Recessions – or at least their financial unfolding via changes in asset prices – cause not only wealth destruction, but also wealth creation. For investors[2] in particular, a recession is often necessary in order to deploy...

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Even as it runs ads thanking America for a $182 billion bailout, insurer AIG might join a lawsuit claiming that shareholders were unfairly hurt by the terms of the federal rescue that kept it out of bankruptcy four years ago.

In the wake of the financial meltdown, President Barack Obama derided Wall Street bonuses as “obscene,” calling them examples of “fat cats who are getting awarded for their failure.” But now, Mr. Obama has announced that he will nominate as his next Treasury secretary Jack Lew, a man who in 2009 bagged a $950,000 bonus after his bank, Citigroup, received billions in a taxpayer-funded bailout. Mr. Lew is the former chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments unit—a group that bet billions against homeowners paying their mortgages.

Inouye reported ownership of Central Pacific shares worth $350,000 to $700,000, some held by his wife, at the end of 2007 [5]. The shares represented at least two-thirds of Inouye's total reported assets. Inouye has requested a delay in filing his annual financial disclosure for 2008, which was due this spring, and he declined to provide the current value of his investment. Since the end of 2007, the bank's stock has lost 79 percent of its value. Central Pacific was founded in 1954 by a group of World War II veterans including Inouye who were emerging leaders in Hawaii's Japanese...

A struggling Hawaii bank received a $135 million federal bailout last fall two weeks after staff from the office of Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, a big investor in the bank, called federal regulators about the aid application, according to a report in ProPublica Tuesday. Bank regulators had designated Central Pacific Financial as a marginal candidate to receive federal assistance, according to documents cited in the report. But soon after the phone call from Inouye's office, the Treasury directed millions of dollars to bolster the bank's capital reserves. Inouye, D-Hawaii, owns shares in the bank that totaled between $350,000 and $700,000...

The Coming Derivatives Panic That Will Destroy Global Financial Markets Stock-Markets / Financial CrashDec 05, 2012 - 04:24 AM By: John Rolls John Rolls Submits, Michael Snyder writes: When financial markets in the United States crash, so does the U.S. economy. Just remember what happened back in 2008. The financial markets crashed, the credit markets froze up, and suddenly the economy went into cardiac arrest. Well, there are very few things that could cause the financial markets to crash harder or farther than a derivatives panic. Sadly, most Americans don't even understand what derivatives are. Unlike stocks and bonds, a...

Thousands of German workers at Opel cars will lose their jobs in another round of cuts announced this week by the car maker’s owner General Motors. As many as 2,300 people have already been let go. … The company lost half a billion dollars in Europe alone in the third quarter, when it produced just 196,000 cars—down from 270,000 in the same quarter last year. …

Regardless of who the President is after this close election, the equity markets and the U.S. economy are in trouble. Debt has spread throughout the Western world. The fallout is political dissonance, growing economic hardship and, in some places, mob violence.Ground zero for the spreading fear and panic is Greece, which was once the worldÂ’s greatest civilization and the birthplace of democracy, poetry and philosophy.There is violent evidence of the contradiction from what the ancients taught and what is unraveling in Greece. It would all just be another boring story at the end of the news day, except there is...

I missed this piece from Steven Rattner (who was a key figure in the Obama auto bailout) when it appeared in the NY Times a couple weeks ago. Tacitly acknowledging that costs are going to soar out of sight, Rattner opens with this frank admission: “We need death panels.” Jonah Goldberg wonders: When can Sarah Palin expect her letter of apology?” Rattner goes on to back away from “death panels,” but instead uses the R-word: rationing. Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the...

It's nearly impossible to find a subject on which the left and right agree in modern-day America. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm sure that the current Congressional gridlock is driving the centrists and moderates of both parties absolutely nuts. While the gridlock will undoubtedly remain until one party achieves some sort of clear edge in November, I believe that there are a few topics on which many on the left and the right do agree. First and foremost, there's the issue of corporate welfare. Chances are, you don't like corporate welfare. Neither do I. Nobody does, and who would? Big business...

Bicycles instead of cars? Dense apartment clusters instead of single homes? Community rituals instead of churches? "Human rights" instead of religious freedom? The UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) which met June 3-14 [1996]in Istanbul, painted an alarming picture of the 21st century community. The American ways-free speech, individualism, travel, and Christianity-are out. A new set of economic, environmental, and social guidelines are in. Citizenship, democracy, and education have been redefined. Handpicked civil leaders will implement UN "laws", bypassing state and national representatives to work directly with the UN. And politically correct "tolerance"-meaning "the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism"...

Readers with long memories may recall that Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors and nominee for secretary of defense, got into trouble when he told a Senate committee, "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country." That was in 1953, and Wilson was trying to make the point that General Motors was such a big company -- it sold about half the cars in the U.S. back then -- that its interests were inevitably aligned with those of the country as a whole. Things are...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department has said the auto industry bailout will cost taxpayers $3.4 billion more than previously thought. Treasury now estimates the 2009 bailout will eventually cost the government $25.1 billion, according to a report sent to Congress on Friday. That is up from the last quarterly estimate of $21.7 billion. Since the $80 billion bailout of the auto industry, Detroit's big automakers have moved from crisis to profit. GM and Chrysler were put through government-funded bankruptcies that slashed costs and debt. Treasury has so far recouped about half of what was extended in grants and...

A recent column in which blogger Matt Lewis questioned the conservative credentials of Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, got a lot of attention on our Web site. A number of Daily Caller readers have commented about Ryan, saying he has cast votes they disagree with, particularly in favor of the $700 billion TARP bailout for Wall Street, the auto bailouts and the taxes on AIG bonuses. Here’s how Lewis put it: "Though he talks like Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, some of Ryan’s most high-profile votes seem closer to Keynes than to Adam Smith. For example, in the span of...

The epidemic of home foreclosures has been made far worse than necessary due to the banks' unwillingness to work with homeowners. Although Congress has passed numerous laws to force the banks to assist homeowners, the banks have found ways not to comply. The banks also brazenly break other laws to further their profits at the expense of homeowners, most recently by falsifying interest rates in the LIBOR scandal.Regular middle class Americans everywhere have unjustly lost their homes to foreclosure. They ended up in homes they could not sell due to the Federal Reserve Board, not their own actions. The Fed manipulates...

Business General Motors GM profits slip 41% as European struggles take their toll America's largest car firm made $1.5bn in the second quarter of 2012, with European division reporting operating loss of $361m Share 531 Email Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 August 2012 09.25 EDT General Motors GM's CEO Dan Akerson said: 'We have more work to do to offset the headwinds we face.' Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/EPA General Motors' profits fell 41% in the second quarter as troubles in Europe undercut strong sales in North America. America's largest automaker made $1.5bn in the second quarter of 2012, compared with $2.5bn...

After dutifully abiding by EU fiscal rules, Finland's tiny population remains surprisingly phlegmatic about bailing out less disciplined euro zone members, and is mostly clinging on to its faith in the single currency project. That faith has been tested as a succession of struggling nations make ever greater demands on the sounder economies in the currency bloc, but it is not yet at breaking point. "We had to sort out our own problems ourselves in the past. That's why people are asking, do we have to help others?" said Maija Siirala, a freelance dressmaker and alterations specialist. Finland, one of...