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The Obama Administration sends taxpayer dollars for "green jobs" to Chinese manufacturersKirsten Gillibrand's letter to the Wall Street Journal has already proven that the real purpose of Obama's "climate change" legislation is to create a market for carbon credits--a phony commodity with even less value than mortgage-backed securities or dot-com stocks--to enrich Obama campaign contribution bundlers like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase. Goldman Sachs bundled almost a million dollars in campaign contributions to help elect Obama so he could pass laws to enrich the company's highly-compensated executives even further, at the expense of working Americans who will have to...

Dem bill urges new US powers over financial firmsTue Oct 27, 2009 8:16pm EDT By Kevin Drawbaugh and Rachelle Younglai * Financial Services Oversight Council would be set up * Treasury would head council to monitor, address risks * Federal Reserve, FDIC would get new authorities * Obama says bill urgent, crucial (Updates with Obama letter to Frank) WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. government would gain far-reaching new powers to regulate, and even shut down, large financial firms that threaten economic stability under a draft bill released in Congress on Tuesday. Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration agreed...

More Black Swans In Store For The US Economy The Pragmatic CapitalistOct. 23, 2009, 6:46 AM Central Banks and governments around the world have thrown everything they can muster at the financial crisis. And up until now, it appears as though they have succeeded. Equity markets are up 60%+ around the globe and investors are beginning to party like its 1999. But a look underneath the hood shows that shiny Cadillac might just be a clunker (don’t worry, the government will take out a loan so you can take out a loan to turn in your clunker for a new...

Major institutions should be broken up if necessary, Greenlight manager says NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Greenlight Capital manager David Einhorn said Monday that his hedge-fund firm is betting on the possibility of a major currency collapse and a surge in interest rates, citing ballooning government deficits in some of the world's most developed countries.The hedge-fund manager, who warned about Lehman Brothers' frailty before it collapsed last year, also said financial institutions that are deemed as "too big to fail," such as Citigroup Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c (C 4.57, -0.02, -0.38%) , should be broken up. ReutersDavid Einhorn of Greenlight Capital. Greenlight has...

NEW YORK – Get over it, America. Wall Street bankers make too much money. The latest example: Goldman Sachs says it has set aside $16.7 billion so far this year for compensation — or about $530,000 per employee. Not bad for a company that a year ago received $10 billion in federal money as well as $12.9 billion from the government's bailout of American International Group Inc. Maddening? Sure. But forcing Goldman or any other Wall Street firm to pay employees less won't help a single unemployed American find a job. It won't help a single homeowner who can't afford...

In the Medieval era -- when the periodic table of the elements was comprised of only Fire, Earth, Air, and Water -- alchemists posited the existence of a fifth magical substance, Quintessence, which when mixed in combinations of the other four would create every other form of matter. They searched in vain for this ethereal substance in their pursuit of a means of changing base metals into gold. Their quest went unrealized, but this magical quintessence was subsequently discovered five centuries later by the new alchemists: mortgage bankers and investors. They found a way to turn worthless mortgages into hordes...

One of the larger mistakes in the Obama financial regulatory reform package was its attempt to give the Federal Reserve additional powers so that it could in theory protect the economy from risks such as the housing bubble that could endanger the entire financial system. As we have argued in the past, the entire concept of minimizing systemic risk is a thankless task that is probably impossible. A key question is how much power such a regulator would have. As we said in June, “Congress could grant it such wide powers that the agency could intervene in just about any...

NEW YORK (AP) - The Obama administration is working up plans to push for new sanctions against Iran, targeting its energy, financial and telecommunications sectors if it does not comply with international demands to come clean about its nuclear program, U.S. officials said Monday. The officials said the U.S. would expand its own penalties against Iranian companies and press for greater international sanctions against foreign firms, largely European, that do business in the country unless Iran can prove that its nuclear activities are not aimed at developing an atomic weapon.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin emerged from a two-month absence from public view with a private talk, heavy on foreign policy, to a group of investors in Hong Kong. Palin was paid an undisclosed amount, said to be in the low six figures, for the 90-minute speech. She has said one of the reasons she resigned was to pay legal bills that have topped $500,000. The speech was closed to reporters, but Palin later posted lengthy excerpts on her Facebook page. "This speech had very little to do with advancing her political career and more to do with advancing her...

WASHINGTON – The chairman of a new congressionally appointed panel has promised a no-holds barred investigation into last year's devastating economic collapse. The inquiry will look into whether any of the nation's biggest financial firms and the regulators in charge of monitoring them were guilty of criminal misconduct. Phil Angelides, appointed this year by Democrats to lead the 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, said the group will examine the conduct of top officials at such firms as Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, AIG and Bear Stearns, as well as mortgage buyers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Whoa. Amateur night at the White House. The White House is billing the President's mid-day speech today at Federal Hall in the belly of Wall Street as a "major" speech on financial reform. PR 101 says if you are president, you never give a major financial speech while the markets are open. If you say one thing that is negative for stocks, or misinterpreted as being negative toward stocks, the market starts to tank as the speech goes on, and that will be the headline. Financial speeches should always be delivered at 6:00 PM or later.

President Obama is planning a major address on Monday to mark the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers Collapse, to take credit for “taking us back from the brink.” Well, a speech seems appropriate, since next week marks another anniversary, that's the week, a year ago, that the president's political fortunes changed for the better. One year ago today, Lehman Brothers collapsed, which set off a week of financial bloodletting on Wall Street. Within a month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 3,000 points from 11,421.99 on September 12 to 8,451.19 on October 10. By the end of the year...

Everyone’s analysis of this financial crisis is far too complicated. The simple facts are that it was created by complete and utter greed on the part of various regulators and financiers. In simple terms, the banks (investment and otherwise) lobbied Congress, the SEC, and other regulators to let them engage in business practices that were neither sensible nor responsible (excess leverage, financial wizardry that turned junk subprime assets into “AAA” rated entities, and more). They did this under the pretence that these practices would be good for the market and US economy as a whole. The reality is that these...

THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN by Wayne Allyn Root Review by Dr. John Hospers, © September 2009 My book, LIBERTARIANISM was first published in 1971. Its subtitle, ‘A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow’ has at long last come true today. I hope it’s not too late. The pragmatic reality is in Wayne Allyn Root’s brilliant new volume: THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN - a title I might add, that was obviously carefully considered and borrowed in the “classic liberal” sense –that is, it was returned with dividends of thought and deserved tribute to The Conscience of a Conservative author, politician –...

Just when you think the Obama White House couldn't find any more power to seize... what with already successful takeovers of banks, Wall Street CEO salaries, auto industries, the energy industry with cap and trade, health care and his proposed Medicare czars, and seizing control from the CIA over terrorist interrogations... Boston.com lets us know what Barney Frank has been tasked with - "...assembling a complex bill to give the federal government unprecedented control over the country’s financial institutions."And the ambitious agenda - catering to Obama's agenda - will be creating the unlikely bedfellows of the Barney Frank liberal/progressive faction...

CAIRO (AFP) – Ramadan tradition dictates that Egypt's fruit-sellers nickname their dates to reflect unofficial popularity ratings, but this year the global recession has forced down the price of the 'Obama'. Named after US President Barack Obama who chose Cairo to deliver a landmark speech to the world's Muslims in June, the popular date was expected to sell for 25 Egyptian pounds (around 4.5 dollars) a kilogram (2.2 pounds). "People can't afford dates this year, we had to bring the price down to 15 pounds (2.7 dollars)," said Mohammed, a fruit vendor in the bustling Sayyeda Zeinab neighbourhood. Emulating the...

Back by popular demand... Extreme Value editor Dan Ferris parses the world's financial headlines...

“Obama’s inauguration speech triggered “one of the greatest munie-bond rallies in history.” Municipal bonds (munies) are rising in value as the threat of additional taxation looms.”

Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiascoBy Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist / September 28, 2008 "THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it." That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. **SNIP** "What does it mean when Boston banks start making many more loans to minorities?" I asked in this space in 1995. "Most likely, that they are knowingly approving risky loans in order to get the feds and the activists off their backs . . . When the coming wave of foreclosures rolls through the inner city, which...

Geithner wants to fast track financial regulatory reformCalcutta News.Net Saturday 25th July, 2009 Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has urged Congress to approve a financial package of regulatory system reform supported by President Barack Obama by the end of the year. Geithner and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke testified with other officials to the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee: House and Senate committees have worked for months to move financial system reform forward, including steps to intensify supervision of financial institutions, strengthen existing regulation, and create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Under the proposal the House Financial Services Committee...