Stocks in the United States tumbled on Monday morning as another sell-off that started in China roiled markets around the world.
Immediately after the opening bell in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 1,000 points — one of the most precipitous such plunges in recent years.
Bracing for a brutal day in markets: Dow stock futures fall more than 700 points. Nasdaq futures fall 5%: http://t.co/m9iabf5FfR
The House quietly voted to raise the debt limit this week and it signals that at least some of the right-wing extremists realize they need to avoid more lose-lose situations no matter what their die-hard convictions. Creating false emergencies over the economy of the United States and watching the Stock Market fall isn't a good idea in an election year. But apparently Senator Ted Cruz didn't get the memo, and immediately vowed to filibuster the whole thing again. His rabble-rousing in the Senate created drama yesterday when suddenly there weren't enough votes to pass what should have been a no-brainer vote to raise the debt limit.
In the end, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was pushed by his own right-wing contingency to vote "Aye" on the Debt Limit bill, creating a no-win situation for him. This year he is facing not only a Tea Party opponent in the Kentucky Republican Primary, but also a really strong threat in Alison Lundergan Grimes, his Democratic adversary. He has to appeal to the independents in order to save his bacon, but the Tea Party doesn't care about that - they see him as a RINO (Republican in Name Only) because very occasionally he shows signs of sanity. So of course they jumped on him when this vote came down.
According to this video paid for by Jim DeMint's Heritage Foundation, all this bipartisanship just shows that McConnell is a damned librul' BULLY, just like the IRS and Obama. How dare he expect that Senate Conservatives would ever vote for something that might help the country!
There was a rare outbreak of sanity in the Grand Old Party on Tuesday, when Speaker John Boehner and a group of his allies joined with the Democrats to approve a raise in the debt ceiling without any preconditions, thereby avoiding the risk of the United States defaulting on its financial obligations. Never fear, though: the outbreak has been contained, and there doesn’t seem to be any danger of contagion.
By Wednesday morning, Senator Ted Cruz, the Texan firebrand, appeared to threaten to filibuster a Senate vote on the debt ceiling, and the Tea Partiers, gold bugs, Randians, birthers, anti-government bootboys, and other assorted wing nuts that make up a big part of the party’s base were happily ranting on about Boehner’s perfidy. If there’s one thing your typical Republican activist likes more than berating President Obama and the Democrats it’s attacking traitors and yellowbellies in his (or her) own ranks, and, once again, the long-suffering Speaker of the House is the primary target.
The drama came as the Senate began consideration of a suspension of the federal borrowing limit. The tension was not on the debt-ceiling vote itself, but on a procedural move that requires 60 senators to vote yes. That meant the chamber’s 55 Democrats needed five Republicans to move forward.
But who would the five Republicans be?
That question was apparently not answered in advance, and it ended up being settled out in the open, on the Senate floor.
. . . Before long, the doors to the Republican cloakroom swung open and a phalanx of Republicans marched down the aisle to the well of the Senate to switch their votes to Yes, including Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, John McCain of Arizona, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Orrin Hatch of Utah.
The tally hit 67. Mr. McConnell shook hands with Ms. Murkowski. Mr. Hatch hugged Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), who had also voted “yes.” Relief spread as the risk of a market-rattling defeat of the bill lifted.
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It should have been a very easy vote. In my view every Senate Republican should have stood together and said what every single one of us tells our constituents back home, which is that we will not go along with raising the debt ceiling while doing nothing to fix the underlying out of control spending problem.
~ Senator Ted Cruz R-Texas
All of the documents inside our organization are available to the public. Simply submit a form saying which documents you want. For instance: ‘I want to see all the letters written by Mr. Romney to [then-IOC President Juan Antonio] Samaranch.’ You’ll get ’em all.
~ Mitt Romney in remarks to the National Press Club, circa 2000
. . . some of the documents that may have shed the most light on Romney's stewardship of the Games were likely destroyed by Salt Lake Olympic officials, ABC News has learned.
The archivists involved in preparing the documents for public review told ABC News that financial documents, contracts, appointment calendars, emails and correspondence are likely not included in the 1,100 boxes of Olympic records, and will not be part of the collection that will ultimately be made public.
"We don't have that stuff," said Elizabeth Rogers, the manuscript curator at the University's Marriott Library. The decisions about what records to donate to the library were made by Olympics officials before they were shipped in 1,100 boxes to the university, she said. "That was done before we got it. I just know it wasn't a decision we made. Everything we have will be available."
The Romney campaign said it has made no effort to prevent the archive from being made public.
"Mitt Romney resigned from SLOC [the Salt Lake Organizing Committee] in early 2002 to run for governor of Massachusetts and was not involved in the decision-making regarding the final disposition of records," said Andrea Saul, a Romney spokesperson, in response to questions.
Snow Job Thanks to Utah politicians and the 2002 Olympics, a blizzard of federal money—a stunning $1.5 billion—has fallen on the state, enriching some already wealthy businessmen. Is this a great country or what? A millionaire developer wants a road built, the federal government supplies the cash to construct it. A billionaire ski-resort owner covets a choice piece of public land. No problem. The federal government arranges for him to have it. Some millionaire businessmen stand to profit nicely if the local highway network is vastly improved. Of course. The federal government provides the money. How can you get yours, you ask? Easy. Just help your hometown land the Olympics. Then, when no one's looking, persuade the federal government to pay for a good chunk of the Games, including virtually any project to which the magic word Olympics can be attached.
For the past few years, while attention was focused on the Great Olympic Bribery Scandal—in which Salt Lake City boosters dispensed as much as $7 million in gifts, travel, scholarships, medical care, jobs and other goodies to IOC members (and their relatives and companions) to ensure that Utah's capital city would be chosen to host the 2002 Winter Games—private and public interests have siphoned an estimated $1.5 billion out of the U.S. Treasury, all in the name of those same Olympics.
Two months before the Games, Utah has already walked away with the gold while setting records in four categories: Total federal handouts. The $1.5 billion in taxpayer dollars that Congress is pouring into Utah is (several) times the amount spent by lawmakers to support all seven Olympic Games held in the U.S. since 1904—combined. In inflation-adjusted dollars.
. . . This is not to say that the recipients are unappreciative. Mitt Romney, SLOC's president, has acknowledged the U.S. government's contribution by saying, "We couldn't have done it without them. These are America's Games."
"This is about a cocktail of fiscal irresponsibility made of Congressional pork barreling by unaccountable federal bureaucrats. . . . What this has turned into, what the Olympic Games, supposedly hosted and funded by Salt Lake City, which began in corruption and bribery, has now turned into an incredible pork barrel project for Salt Lake City and its environs. Not surprisingly, the GAO found that there was no effective mechanism for tracking federal funding and support to host cities.
. . . As outlined, most of the money taken from taxpayers to pay the bill for the SLC Olympic Games is going to be taken to build major highway and transit improvement projects, quote, "especially those critical to the success of the Olympic Games," unquote. This last phrase is vital to understanding the fleece game being played in Salt Lake City.
. . . There is a process. There is a process for authorization for these projects. They are conducted by the authorizing committees. Some of them may be worthwhile and necessary. Some of them may deserve to be authorized. Instead they are stuck into an appropriations bill without scrutiny . . . Those are my tax dollars, Mr. President, as well as the citizens of Utah's tax dollars....
In 2002, I went to Senator Bennett asking for some modest help. He's a member of the Appropriations Committee. I think he was thinking I might ask for 5-10 million, but we asked for several hundred million dollars in help. Everything that was needed was ultimately obtained.
~ Mitt Romney in remarks to the National Press Club, 2004 (clip in video below)
There is absolutely no question that the money would have been spent even if the Olympics had not come to Salt Lake City. It may not have been spent as wisely or as prudently as if we had not had the pressure of the Olympics.
~ Senator Bob Bennett, R-Utah, quoted by ABC News
In one of the biggest IPOs in history, in which a huge amount of stock was sold to small investors, privileged Wall Street insiders once again got much better information than individuals did.
~ From MSNBC "The Inside Story of Facebook's IPO"
...there’s something unseemly about customers complaining at a gambling table that the game was rigged against them....Unfortunately, you can’t sue people for being suckers or greedy. You’ll note these people never sue when their investments go up.
~ WSJ Marketwatch OP-ED called "You Can Sue Facebook, but Why Did You Buy?
Nasdaq messed up Facebook's IPO, and now Facebook is totally going to show them by taking its stock away from Nasdaq and hooking up with Nasdaq's frenemy, the New York Stock Exchange.
That is the latest gossip from the world of Facebook, whose stock today managed to dead-cat bounce by more than 3 percent to exactly $32.
~ Huff Post Article "Facebook is Totally Dumping Nasdaq"
I understand that the FB shareholders are planning to rename their company, CHAGRIN, and to discuss their 'issues' on the new social/legal networking site, FACEOFF.
~ comment by awenshok on BusinessWeek
I would buy a ton of it. Because Facebook is the king of backlash. It takes a whipping and keeps on gripping. Us all. Try as we might we can never break the bonds that our Facebook masters have us all captive in. This is the dirty secret that they, and us, all know. They can force us into a timeline. We will revolt, but then learn to tow it. They can take away our protections. We will complain, but then learn to cope. They can sell all our information. We will freak out, then give them some more. They've got us all by the walls.
And we're not going anywhere. All 900 million of us and growing. We can bitch, we can moan, but we're still going to post. Facebook is like an awful party that we all already went to and have been standing in the corner of for the last 6 years...
~ Gavin Shulman on Huff Post Comedy
Facebook's stock has gone way down. It's as if a million investors' voices cried out and were suddenly silenced.
We made a terrible, egregious mistake...There's almost no excuse for it...We got very defensive. And people started justifying everything we did.
~ CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, on NBC's Meet the Press
Since when does a mea culpa deserve praise? JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon shows how low the leadership bar can go. ow.ly/aUocG
Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting....We don't know all the details," Obama said. "It's going to be investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street reform.
~ President Obama on The View
It’s no secret that bankers have been feeling the wrath of an angry public—although nowhere near as much wrath or anger as the situation demands. They kept a low profile for a while, garaging their Lamborghinis and keeping the big watches in the sock drawer. But like penny-ante crooks who ignore warnings not to flash their money around after a heist, they are what they are. And everything, from multi-million-dollar duplexes to oceangoing yachts and NetJets accounts, is back on display.
~ From an article called "Dimon in the Rough" on VanityFair.com
If we are going to define this trade as a hedge, then there is no other conclusion to reach except that everything at a huge bank is a hedge.
And once you define everything as a hedge, well then, nothing is a hedge.
~ Barry Ritholtz on The Big Picture Blog
That is what Jamie Dimon has said. He says it’s stupid and sloppy but we’ll fix it. So stay away. But what if the next loss is $20 billion or $200 billion? Is he saying JP Morgan should be entitled to continue to take these bets right up until the day it lands in the taxpayers lap again?
...That’s the strongest argument for a modern Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall said in effect that hedge funds should be separated from commercial banking. If a big institution wants to go out and play in the market, that’s fine. But it doesn’t get the backup of the federal government. If it’s too complicated to implement the Volcker rule, do you say we give up and let the largest financial institutions do what they want? Or do you say maybe that’s the reason we need a modern Glass-Steagall?
~ Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to Ezra Klein of Washington Post
Banks have been loading up on risk and they don't want to be accountable. Jamie Dimon not only is CEO of JP Morgan Chase, he holds this position of public trust, advising the New York Fed. on how to regulate risk for these large financial institutions, like his own finanicial institution.
It's not just conflict of interest, it's a real point about attitude here. This isn't personal to Jamie Dimon. It's what's been going on ever since Dodd-Frank passed. There's been a guerrilla war out there in which the largest financial institutions have been doing everything they can to make sure that financial regulations don't get put in place. And if they do get put in place, that they're loaded with loopholes and not very effective. There's been a lobbying army hired by these financial institutions becasue they really don't want to have any oversight. They want to take on risks however they want to take on risk and let the rest of us bear the consequences...
~ Elizabeth Warren on CNN's Starting Point
