Free Republic

It's reasonable to fret that Wall Street is vacuuming up all the best talent from our top colleges. But why? Ezra Klein argues in the Washington Post that investment banking recruiters are filling a psychic void left by liberal education itself. His column is welcome, though it's running a bit late. The proportion of employed new Harvard graduates in finance, for example, dropped from 28 percent to 17 percent between 2008 and 2011. But the number may yet bounce back, so the interesting question is why it was ever so high. It's not the salaries or peer encouragement. It's that ....

The American left. They championed Occupy Wall Street, they champion Socialism, and they champion class warfare. Just the other day, I heard Bob Beckel call the Republicans the party of the rich. Now it doesn't take a genius to use Google and it doesn't take much digging to find out that seven of the top ten richest members of congress are Democrats. These members of congress sport last names such as Kerry, Rockefeller, and Feinstein. It also doesn't take much digging to find some of President Obama's biggest donors were evil corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Google, JP Morgan...

Why would you assume that people with the ability to constantly interrupt government workers mid-day, and with the ability to camp out in a park for months at a time, wouldn't have jobs? Occupy Albany got their much needed dose of media attention (video below) this morning when they interrupted budget talks in the capital. The attention-whoring featured the usual slapstick, including mic checks and the repetition of short phrases (because saying it twice makes it seem more intelligent), but the interview after the incident was where the real entertainment came through. When asked about the interruption and the tactics...

According to the following from Zerohedge, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, American Spectator, Politico, Dirtdiggersdigest and others, Romney is about as big a pro-crony capitalism, taxpayer-funded corporate welfare hog/queen as you can get. He will make Obama look like an amateur. Hence, why Wall Street is lining up behind Mitt Romney. You can't have what many on Wall Street want and support free enterprise. Corporatism/crony capitalism/corporate welfare should be eschewed by conservatives. If only many in the so-called conservative media would be honest with people instead of trying to mischaracterize and pigeonhole Gingrich... Zerohedge On Mitt Romney's Defense of Bain...

As previously reported, Willie Nelson is rallying behind the Occupy Wall Street protests. While many country artists have kept mum about their thoughts on the movement, Nelson posted a video in October of him and his wife reciting a poem they wrote in favor of Occupy. Now, he’s joining forces with other famous musicians who share his stance on the topic by contributing to the album ‘Occupy This Album: A Compilation of Music By, For and Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the 99%.’ The album is expected to release in the spring.

When Bain Capital sought to raise money in 1989 for a fast-growing office-supply company named Staples, Mitt Romney, Bain’s founder, called upon a trusted business partner: Goldman Sachs, whose bankers led the company’s initial public offering. When Mr. Romney became governor of Massachusetts, his blind trust gave Goldman much of his wealth to manage, a fortune now estimated to be as much as $250 million. And as Mr. Romney mounts his second bid for the presidency, Goldman is coming through again: Its employees have contributed at least $367,000 to his campaign, making the firm Mr. Romney’s largest single source of...

After a disappointing year, the big banks are pulling way back on their bonus pools. This is going to be hard on bankers whose salaries are usually a very small part of their overall compensation — and yes, before you drag out the world’s smallest violin, let me agree that they have no entitlement to anything more. But the bankers aren’t the only ones who’ve built their lifestyle around a heavy flow of easy money. Before the financial crisis, the industry payroll accounted for 20 percent of New York state’s tax revenue; it still accounts for about 13 percent, as...

It came to prominence when demonstrators vowing to represent the 99 percent condemned corporate malfeasance, lopsided executive salaries and the distribution of wealth from the middle to the top. Four months later, the grievances of Occupy Wall Street have become a pillar of campaigns from Washington, D.C., to San Diego. The amalgamation of deepening distrust in the American institutions of Washington and Wall Street, the sluggish job and housing markets and the growing prospect that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may become the Republican presidential nominee has helped thrust tenets of the Occupy movement into the political sphere. On Thursday,...

MICHAEL MOORE: "They're so desperate to be elected, that [it] is more powerful than the money than they're getting from these corporations is your vote. They can't win without your vote -- and don't let the Democrats and Barack Obama play that card of 'Well, where else are you going to go?' You know? They do not want to do that. They really don't want to do that because hey saw what happened in 2000. There's just enough pissed off people that will actually go somewhere else and can cause a huge ruckus as a result of that. So, they...

Mitt Romney has been quick to justify his record of laying-off workers and closing plants as CEO of Bain Capital by wrapping himself in the “creative destruction” of free market capitalism But Romney’s idea of capitalism is that you can fire workers and strip companies on the way up, and then if you are big and influential enough, demand taxpaying workers bail you out on the way down. While Romney’s supporters are putting up a heavy smoke screen, Tea partiers should understand that, as a supporter of the TARP Wall Street bailout, Romney’s “creative destruction” only applies to Main Street,...

In late 1979, during an economic strategy meeting, Ronald Reagan was talking about his upcoming presidential campaign. At one point, somebody expressed concern that John Connally, the former governor of Texas and another presidential candidate, was gaining support among corporate chief executive officers, with all the financial support and credibility that that entailed. Reagan said this didn’t bother him at all. “Let him have the Fortune 500,” he said. “I want our campaign to stand for Main Street, not Wall Street. I want us to stand for the worker, the shopkeeper, the entrepreneur, and the small businessman.” Reagan’s instincts were...

Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have been unfair in attacking Romney as a Vulture Capitalist. Under Romney, Bain Capital invested funds to start Staples, which employs 90,000 people today. Romney and Bain created more jobs than they lost, which makes the accusations of Vulture Capitalism against them, to be unfair.: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/romney-compare-5-million-we-put-staples-530-million-obama-put-solyndra But real Vulture Capitalists do in fact exist, in America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Those are people who never create significant numbers of jobs, or produce goods and services of any value, but make huge fortunes. This type of capitalism is not your Grandpa's old fashioned capitalism. We...

Hating Wall Street is an American tradition that dates back even to the days when Thomas Jefferson cursed that money lover Alexander Hamilton. And for centuries, the complaints about it have largely stayed the same: It does nothing! It creates chaos! It’s a parasite that sucks hardworking Americans dry! (Or something to that effect.) But these are distortions of a fundamentally beneficial business. The country’s largest investment banks, commercial banks and a few big insurance companies (what we generally refer to as Wall Street) play the crucial role of intermediation — matching borrowers with lenders. Most of the time, the...

Have a column on Iowa coming soon, but first, a quick but absurd note from the world of high finance. It seems Jim O'Neill, the head of Goldman's Asset Management department, is predicting that the United States stock market may go up "15 to 20 percent." O'Neill apparently believes Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve will resort to another round of money-printing, and finally green-light the long-awaited "Qe3," or third round of "Quantitative Easing." The QE programs involve the Fed printing hundreds of billions of dollars and pumping them into the marketplace, where they ostensibly stimulate the economy (although recent...

....Perry started slashing away at Romney’s record as chief executive at Bain Capital on Monday, but was more caustic Tuesday in condemning the firm’s practice of making money in corporate takeover deals that sometimes triggered job losses. "They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for the company to get sick, and then they sweep in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that, and they leave the skeleton,” Perry told about 100 seniors here at the Sun City retirement complex. ......Perry went on to castigate the Obama administration for allegedly failing to stop “self-dealing” on...

Fort Mill, S.C. --— Rick Perry, the lone Republican campaigning for president Tuesday in South Carolina, likened Mitt Romney to a greedy Wall Street “vulture” who was indifferent to the plight of workers who lost their jobs in deals that enriched his investment firm. Seeking an early edge in South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary .. the Texas governor also ridiculed Rick Santorum’s congressional spending record. Perry started slashing away at Romney’s record as chief executive at Bain Capital on Monday, but was more caustic Tuesday .. "They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for the...

In recent testimony before a Congressional committee, MF Global’s former chief Jon Corzine as well as other MF Global executives said repeatedly the didn’t know where the failed brokerage firm’s $1.2 billion of missing client money was. In fact, MF Global executives knew exactly what happened to the money, as do the regulators who oversaw the firm’s bankruptcy. The so-called segregated customer funds were repeatedly, and legally (through re-hypothication), used as collateral for MF Global loans for 100:1 leveraged bets on European sovereign debt. Rehypothication is the 800lb gorilla (Editor’s note: make that the 2,000 lb gorilla). In 2007 I...

Mitt Romney sought on Friday to dispel any notion he is undesirably close to Wall Street, but said his business experience prepares him better than his rivals to be president. "I'm independent of Wall Street," the former Massachusetts governor told Bloomberg Television's Peter Cook in an interview. "By the way, I haven't ever worked on Wall Street. They were service providers to the business I was in, I was not in a Wall Street firm, although I was in financial services broadly."

It seems that railing against big banks and the reviled 1 per cent is actually a big business in itself for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Over the past three months since the Occupy Wall Street protests began, the movement raised a whopping $706,855.91 through online and personal donations. After massive amounts of laundry, food, and subway passes, the group now has $300,000 left to spend as they see fit.

In an exclusive Human Events interview, the senior Republican on the Senate’s Agriculture Committee's Jobs, Rural Economic Growth and Energy Innovation subcommittee discusses his take on the MF Global bankruptcy scandal. “I have heard from several South Dakotans who were affected by the apparent fraud that occurred in the final days of MF Global before its collapse,” said Sen. John R. Thune (R-S.D.), who worked in the Small Business Administration​ under President Ronald W. Reagan. [Video of Thune's December 13 questioning Corzine is at the bottom of the article.] The firm’s Halloween bankruptcy was followed by the November 4 resignation...

http://www.economicnoise.com/

Yet again, the Occupy movement has attempted to shut down ports around America, further damaging the economy and injuring port companies and their workers. While they did this supposedly to express ‘solidarity’ with various ‘martyrs’, the ‘leaders’ of the movement still deny receiving any endorsement from unions operating within the Northwest port area. As a Britain, I want to ask this question: how much further do Occupiers have to push before Americans stand up and say “enough”?

This past spring, gourmet gift purveyor Harry & David filed for bankruptcy protection. The 77-year-old mail order company is an American business icon famous for its premium fruits, exquisite gift baskets and extraordinary service. So what brought the high-end gift giant to its knees? The slide began in 2004, when a New York private equity firm purchased the Oregon-based company for $230 million in a highly leveraged buyout, only paying $82 million in cash. One year later, the private equity firm sold $245 million worth of bonds to pay off the debt and recoup its original investment. Later in 2005...

Members of Congress already get better health insurance and retirement benefits than other Americans. They are about to get better insider trading laws as well. Several academic studies show that the investment portfolios of congressmen and senators consistently outperform stock indices like the Dow and the S&P 500, as well as the portfolios of virtually all professional investors. Congressmen do better to an extent that is statistically significant, according to studies including a 2004 article about "abnormal" Senate returns by Alan J. Ziobrowski, Ping Cheng, James W. Boyd and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski in the Journal of Financial and Qualitative Analysis....

In a strange and unexpected twist, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives is now blocking progress on a bill that would definitively outlaw insider trading [cnbc explains] by federal lawmakers. The Republican sponsor of the bill in the House, Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus of Alabama, had scheduled a markup of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act for next week. But on Wednesday, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia cancelled the markup session. Cantor reportedly said he blocked the bill to give Congress more time to examine the issue. Critics of the move, however, fear that...

A legal loophole in international brokerage regulations means that few, if any, clients of MF Global are likely to get their money back. Although details of the drama are still unfolding, it appears that MF Global and some of its Wall Street counterparts have been actively and aggressively circumventing U.S. securities rules at the expense (quite literally) of their clients. MF Global's bankruptcy revelations concerning missing client money suggest that funds were not inadvertently misplaced or gobbled up in MF’s dying hours, but were instead appropriated as part of a mass Wall St manipulation of brokerage rules that allowed for...

MICHAEL MOORE, ON CNN: Well, "The Washington post" three weeks ago had this investigation and they said that President Obama has now raised more money from Wall Street and the banks for this election cycle than all -- than all eight Republicans combined. I don't want to say that, because if that's the truth, that Wall Street already has their man and his name is Barack Obama, then we've got a much bigger problem. But I think President Obama, if he were here in the room, the question I would ask him is why are they your number one contributors?...

<p>The National Lawyers Guild is calling for nearly 300 Occupy L.A. protesters arrested early Wednesday to be released from jail.</p> <p>The majority of the 292 protesters were taken into custody for failing leave a City Hall park after police issued a dispersal order early Wednesday, city officials said. A smaller number also were cited for resisting arrest.</p>

The coverage was hard-hitting and shocking to some: Members of Congress received special opportunities to get in on the ground floor of stock offerings, and were actively trading in shares of companies “whose prosperity they influence and whose conduct they help to regulate.” --snip-- Given the political environment, members of Congress appear eager to insulate themselves not only from the suggestion that they have some market advantage over average Americans but also from what they expect could become a potent campaign charge in a year when many usually safe incumbents could face a challenge. Sarah Palin provided the contours of...

This weekend's Wall Street Journal had a masterful article by Matthew Kaminski where he interviews well known good government wonk Fred Siegel. Siegel explains how the public employee unions have co-opted New York City and New York State's Governments. It is no longer government for and by the people, rather it has become a closed parasitic system that exists to enrich government workers of all stripes. While the "public servants" on the top of the pyramid reap the biggest ill gotten rewards, even the lowliest janitor gets full medical benefits, free health insurance for life, bloated salaries and obscene pensions....

Crony Capitalism: As the president embraces Occupy Wall Street, his favorite corporation paid no taxes in 2010 on $14 billion in profits, much of it overseas. Meanwhile, 20,000 jobs for the 99% go unfilled. At a recent town hall meeting, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, reminded constituents of a story that broke earlier in the year — that General Electric paid no taxes on profit of $14 billion, $9 billion of which was earned overseas. Ryan related how he had asked a GE tax officer the length of GE's tax filing. The tax guy said...

The court-appointed trustee overseeing the liquidation of MF Global’s brokerage now estimates that the shortfall in the firm’s customer funds could be more than $1.2 billion, double previous estimates.

LEAKED MEMO: Wall Street Has A Much Bigger Worry Than Obama Joe Weisenthal Nov. 19, 2011, 9:37 AM MSNBC's Chris Hayes has uncovered a very intriguing memo from DC lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranfor (which has had close ties with John Boehner) written to the American Bankers Association proposing an ambitious project to monitor and undermine the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as sympathetic politicians. That alone is interesting, but the most intriguing part to us was this assessment of the risks that bankers face if the movement grows unchecked. Here's a portion from the letter... This...

Rasanath Das, a former New York investment banker who gave it all up to become a Hindu monk, was recently spending his Sunday afternoons leading Occupy Wall Street protesters in meditation until police cleared their camp at Zuccotti Park this week. The 32-year-old monk isn’t sure now where his next session will be. He’ll keep following the protesters to offer meditation sessions, though, convinced they will only roll back the inequality they see around them if they find equanimity deep inside. “Anger won’t solve anything,” he told Reuters. “We have to work from the heart… there is so much distrust...

Well, the occutards have finally been evicted, leaving untold amounts of filth in their wake. You know things are bad when even The Daily Show even starts making fun of them. Check out the video: Portrait of Hypocrisy -- OWS Becomes the Very Thing It Claims to Hate

"...In New Hampshire on Thursday, [Herman] Cain accused the [OWS] protesters of "trying to destroy the greatest nation in the world" with plans to stop traffic and subway commuters. He accused them of trying "to infringe upon people's right and liberty to go to work."

U.S. Senate hopeful and Harvard Law prof Elizabeth Warren, who has claimed she laid the “intellectual foundation” for the Occupy Wall Street movement, is jilting the anti-corporate proteges in her own Ivy League yard, refusing to sign a petition in support of Occupy Harvard. ... The move distances Warren from an organization that is losing public support, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released yesterday. It also has made her a target of the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS political organization, which unleashed a negative ad last week blasting her for supporting radicals over jobs. Warren backed off her “intellectual...

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Occupy Wall Street demonstrators dance in front of the New York City Police during what protest organizers call a "Day of Action" in New York November 17, 2011. Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters marched through New York's financial district toward the stock exchange on Thursday to protest economic inequality at the heart of the American capitalism. Sunni Justice 27, unemployed, poses for a portrait in the Occupy Toronto camp at St James Park, Toronto, November 7, 2011. Sunni said, "..why am I here? Simple answer is because I care about the earth and I care about my fellow brothers...

So this has been the marketing strategy for Mens Wearhouse all along, huh? The “day of action” is to begin early, with protesters converging on Wall Street camouflaged in business suits hoping to blend in with office workers trooping out of the subway. “We will rise from beneath. They can’t stop all of us. It’s going to get crazy,” vowed one organizer. “They took the first shot Tuesday night. [Thursday] we return fire. We will be peaceful, but we will resist.” The city said it was bracing for tens of thousands of people in the streets. “The protesters are calling...

These Guys Are Definitely Wall Street's Heroes Julia La Roche Nov. 17, 2011, 10:33 AM Thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters descended upon Manhattan's Financial District this morning in an attempt to march on the New York Stock Exchange. A majority of the ire coming from this demonstration, which began in Lower Manhattan and spread nationwide with copycat movements, has been directed at Wall Street. A pair of men in suits and ties were spotted in the massive crowd with bright signs saying "Get a Job" and "Occupy a Desk!" They are officially being considered Wall Street's heroes.

"The brave students, unemployed Americans, families and others Occupying Wall Street …. There's an economic emergency in America, and it's time for dramatic action to get our leaders to stand with the 99% instead of the 1%. "That's why on November 17th, SEIU members will be marching arm in arm with… the 99% protesting the failure of politicians in Congress to pass a (POTS latest) jobs bill. This movement of the 99% is only beginning. We will not rest..

Protesters in New York faced off with police Tuesday after being kicked out of their tent camp in lower Manhattan in a huge operation that threw the two-month old Occupy Wall Street movement into crisis. All morning, several hundred protesters played cat and mouse with the authorities as they searched for a way to reestablish themselves in the wake of the nighttime raid. About two dozen people were arrested when one group of activists tried to occupy a small park apparently owned by a church. The crowd marched through the Financial District and eventually turned back to Zuccotti Park, their...

NEW YORK – Watch out New York City. The Occupy anti-capitalist movement is preparing to serve a three-course meal of so-called direct action that apparently includes the blocking of subways and bridges as well as shutting down the stock market. The attempt to cause mass chaos, slated for Thursday, is tied to the Tides Center, the George Soros-financed group that funds far-left causes. Tides grantees have been helping to direct Occupy from the onset of the anti-Wall Street movement. Occupy Wall Street is currently holding "Direct Action Preparation and Training" courses today and tomorrow in downtown Manhattan to gear up...

Protesters from Portland to Salt Lake City face off with police trying to clear out camps. Michigan man with criminal record arrested after woman, 25, is allegedly raped in her tent. Sin City director Frank Miller rips protesters as 'losers, thieves and rapists'. While the Occupy Wall Street movement has collected support from the likes of Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and rapper Jay-Z, not all in Hollywood circles are sympathetic... Miller wrote: 'In the name of decency, go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft.'

Frank Miller Doesn't Think Much of Occupy Wall Street Frank Miller, the legenday comic artist behind Sin City, 300, and The Dark Knight Returns unloaded on the Wall Street protesters in a recent blog post, and plenty of his fans are firing back. First, the blog post. In a long statement posted on his website, titled "Anarchy," Miller says he has decided to say what others are "too damn polite" to say: The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Member of Occupy Louisville are planning what they call "7 Days of Solidarity," to help the larger community get to know what they stand for. According to a news release from the group, on Sunday members will join a march with Louisville Peace Action Community. On Monday, they will rally with union workers. On Tuesday, the will protest in support of campaign finance reform. On Wednesday, they will discuss health care reform and protest Humana. Thursday activities are to be determined. On Friday, they will help clean up vacant property in a neighborhood hit by foreclosures. On...

Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is disappointed with fellow Democrat President Barack Obama’s treatment of the financial industry. That’s a sector that Spitzer frequently took on as New York state attorney general. “The president embraced a very status quo vision of Wall Street,” Spitzer told Al Jazeera news service. “He did not lead an effort to fundamentally reform the way our financial sector operates. He put Tim Geithner in as Treasury secretary, and Geithner and [National Economic Council Director Lawrence] Summers together were very much status quo voices.”

NEW YORK, NY — Hundreds of members of a militant splinter group called the Rebel WASPS descended upon Wall Street yesterday, signaling the emergence of a powerful new faction in the protests and a formidable opponent to the Occupy movement. Arriving en masse in vintage Saabs and old station wagons that their parents keep as “second home” cars, the WASPS drunkenly stormed lower Manhattan Tuesday, carrying signs with slogans reading “We Are The 0.0001%,” and “Privilege is a Right”. Five of the Rebels were arrested for open container, but were immediately released by orders of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “The WASPS...

Del Posto and Babbo have the same celebrity chef as an owner, reputations for impossible-to-get reservations, and customers who can afford, say, Del Posto’s seven-course “menu tradizionale” at $145 a person. It is not unreasonable to imagine that a good number of those customers make a living on Wall Street. So their reaction after word spread on Wednesday that Mario Batali had mentioned them in the same breath as Stalin and Hitler was to let their hefty wallets do the talking and threaten to cancel their hard-won reservations. Some complained on Twitter, some on the Bloomberg terminals they use to...