Spain bails out Bankia
Looks like Spain is following in the footsteps of the rest of the world most notably the United States of America.
The state takeover of its fourth-largest lender, Spain’s biggest bank rescue, has intensified fears that the rising cost of helping banks may force the euro zone’s fourth largest economy to seek an Irish-style international bailout.
What’s sad is that they would bailout Bankia but make everyone else in Spain suffer from austerity measures. As for the United States, the TARP bailout wasn’t as effective as the auto industry bailout. That goes to show you that it is probably a better idea to bail out industries that produce things.
The CEO whistleblower formerly of Olympus
I just found it amazing that the CEO of Olympus would blow the whistle like that. Usually this sort of stuff never comes from that high a level within a corporation.
By bringing a claim on the grounds of whistleblowing and discrimination in the employment tribunal in east London, Woodford’s damages are unlimited, depending on whether he is likely ever to regain a career at global CEO level again.
Investigators have uncovered accounting fraud among other things at Olympus in Japan.
Will we be able to continue our economic growth?
It’s a good question when we look at our limited natural resources and the damage we’re inflicting on our environment.
In this Op-ED in the Times by Tim Jackson we’re alerted to another factor that could limit growth.
Ever-increasing productivity means that if our economies don’t continue to expand, we risk putting people out of work. If more is possible each passing year with each working hour, then either output has to increase or else there is less work to go around. Like it or not, we find ourselves hooked on growth.
So it’s either we find a way to continue growth or we look at low-growth models. I would think that there are still opportunities for growth in technology, alternative energy and biotech, but I don’t know how many jobs these areas will create in the future.
A low-growth model on the other hand does start to make sense.
The endemic modern tendency to streamline or phase out such professions highlights the lunacy at the heart of the growth-obsessed, resource-intensive consumer economy. Low productivity is seen as a disease. A whole set of activities that could provide meaningful work and contribute valuable services to the community are denigrated because they involve employing people to work with devotion, patience and attention.
Tweet of the day: Olbermann-Style
Hell no! Needs to be run better than just a BUSINESS! RT @markerlewine You don't believe the country should be run like a business?
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) May 27, 2012
I have to agree with Keith here. I am a believer in the commons. Some things are to be held in common for use by people. Government should not be run like a business because a business is about making profit. A government is about delivering services to its people, among the other things it must do. For example look at what happened when Bolivia privatized its water services and let Bechtel come in and take over.
Hilarious: Instead of raising taxes, actually collect the ones owed! Duh!
Seriously, it took a recession and lack of revenue to local governments to realize that they should actually be doing their job! It’s not all about those 1 percenters hiding their money in the Cayman Islands. There are locals who aren’t paying their share either. Some of them don’t even realize it as governments have been lax in their enforcement.
Of course Vermont is leading the charge:
Vermont is among a handful of cash-strapped states getting more aggressive about collecting every tax owed — hiring more collectors, hounding scofflaws and exploiting corners of their tax laws that haven’t been enforced in years. It’s an effort to avoid what politicians from both parties are dead set against: raising taxes.
“You don’t want to raise taxes until you’re very sure the taxes that people are supposed to pay are being paid,” said Rep. Janet Ancel, chairwoman of Vermont’s House Ways and Means Committee.
Makes sense to me. This must be making Grover Norquist toss & turn in his bathtub!
Dressage: What the 1 percent Ann Romney competes in
I thought dressage had to do with clothes actually. But no, I am mistaken; how silly of me! It’s some odd sport where you make horses dance. Maybe Michael Brown of Arabian horse training and FEMA #fail fame can get in on this.
Dressage is a rather rarified equine sport that involves coaxing very expensive horses into committing dance moves. In what will no doubt be decried on the right as an act of class warfare, the Times gives a glimpse of the Romney lifestyle through the prism of Ann Romney’s passion for the sport in which she has won championship medals.
I believe in class warfare and I tend to fight it everyday. I agree with Adele Stan over at the Washington Monthly that you have to commend Mrs. Romney for overcoming her illness to take on such a thing, but regardless this is the life that they live in the 1 percent. I also have to agree with Ms. Stan on her comparison of FDR and JFK to Romney. They were wealthy but they were very much in touch with what the middle class and poor were going through. FDR was deemed a traitor to his class actually.
While the New Deal didn’t really do a lot to help minorities at the time, it set in place programs that eventually would. A lot was done during the LBJ years to build on the New Deal through the Great Society. Of course all Americans now benefit from the flagship New Deal program: Social Security.
Curt Schilling is so not a job creator
Well, I guess he did try right? He had an entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to develop video games. The bad thing is now 400 people are without jobs.
Schilling’s performance that afternoon was one of several signals that eventually convinced Chafee there was little he could do to help save 38 Studios and there was no point in throwing good taxpayer money after bad. The stunning collapse of 38 Studios, which spent years developing its products, took barely three weeks: In late April executives assured Rhode Island officials they were on schedule to pay their bills; on Thursday they dismissed the entire workforce, about 400, and now seem all but officially out of business.
Rhode Island granted 38 Studios a 75 million dollar loan! It seems that there was a lot of bad management that contributed to the company’s downfall.
Chafee said he was “stonewalled’’ by company executives, and even 38 Studios employees had no inkling of trouble until May 15, when their paychecks did not arrive as scheduled.
It also seems that Chafee when running for Governor as an Independent was right to criticize the loan by the previous governor; because Schilling was an “untested entrepreneur.” I find it interesting that of all the industries that the former governor wanted to jump start he chose the video game industry. A video game industry in Rhode Island?
US Trade Representative’s Office out of step with the American people
Ron Kirk is a person who flies under the radar in the Washington press corps. You don’t hear his name mentioned a lot by the likes of Chris Matthews and others. It’s probably because trade issues aren’t sexy enough I suppose. Well, other than during presidential campaigns when NAFTA was actually discussed because Obama criticized what Clinton had supported.
But the question to ask is this: how is some of the trade deals under this administration any worse than NAFTA? Just look at what the USTR wants to do with Trans-Pacific Partnerships.
69 Members of Congress (68 democrats and one republican) sent a letter to President Obama urging him to reconsider US proposals for the TPP that would effectively ban popular Buy American and buy local government contracting policies. An article in the Huffington Post called it a congressional “revolt”.
See that? You even got one Republican to actually care! As to Ron Kirk my question is: why are you kneecapping domestic manufacturers with your TPP deal? Is there some grand scheme that you’re pursuing?
Morgan Stanley and Facebook, more reasons why Wall Street Sucks
Now all the investors who jumped into the Facebook IPO are experiencing buyer’s remorse I suppose:
And others are irked over reports that Morgan Stanley, which guided Facebook through its public debut, told only some select clients of an analyst’s negative report about Facebook before its stock began trading May 18.
What has investing become? It’s more like legalized gambling unfortunately. People don’t invest in a company for the long-term anymore, hoping that it’s growth occurs through a good business model. It’s not that Facebook has a bad business model as it’s built on advertising, but it was priced too high. People would have gotten in at the lower price and probably held the stock for some time hoping to see a ROI much farther down the road–possibly a couple of years.
Occupy Wall Street Librarians file lawsuit against Bloomberg
Sometimes the best type of activism is the legal kind. For decades this is what the Southern Poverty Law Center did and they were quite successful. Also, the Center for Constitutional Rights has had a few victories against the Bush administration.
Thursday, members of Occupy Wall Street took a step toward forcing the city of New York to reveal the facts of that night to the public, as they filed a federal lawsuit against the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, seeking to hold them accountable for violations of their constitutional rights in the course of the raid, as well as subsequent smaller raids that targeted the People’s Library – the movement’s most visible demonstration, through the collection and sharing of books in public spaces, of the rights to free speech and free assembly. In the course of the suit, the city may have to admit who called the shots during the eviction on November 15, 2011.
I would also file suits against the NYPD as well. I’m surprised there isn’t more of a nationally coordinated legal move by all the Occupy groups to bring lawsuits against their local governments. I think Chicago and Oakland can be singled out.
