Tag Wall Street

Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%

By Brian Filed in Links, Politics Tagged with 2012 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, campaign contributors, Corporate America, Goldman Sachs, Mitt Romney, OpenSecrets.org, Wall Street January 5th, 2012 @ 11:32 am

Now that the primaries have actually begun and the sham contest featuring all those Republican ass-clowns that has filled the media for the last five months is coming to an end with the less-than-surprise result that Mitt Romney is going to be the nominee, it’s probably a good time to point out to you exactly WHO is behind The Mittster.

OpenSecrets.org has been keeping track of who has been putting up the cash for all the candidates, so let’s just see who Romney’s main contributors are:

Yep. Seven of the top ten are Wall Street financial firms or major banks, with good ol’ Goldman Sachs right at the top, and several more in the next ten.

For comparison, here’s the same Top 20 list for Barack Obama:

Not much Wall Street by comparison. Goldman Sachs is way down on the list, and the only financial firm in the top ten is Chicago-based Chopper Trading. Which is not to say that Obama isn’t seeing plenty of money from big corporations, because that’s mostly who’s filling up the rest of that list — all those law firms are lobbyists who represent nothing but big corporations.

So there’s your choice, America: the candidate who represents Wall Street versus the candidate who represents Big Corporations. It’s a long way to November, but it really doesn’t even matter who you choose, because nobody represents you or me.

Black Monday

By Brian Filed in Links, News Tagged with bad economy, Black Monday, Black Thursday, Black Tuesday, Crash of 1929, Crash of 1987, Crash of 2008, stock market, Wall Street October 10th, 2011 @ 11:34 am

Historically, October is the month of calamity for the stock market. The Crash of 1929 culminated with a trio of “black” days: Thursday the 24th, Monday the 28th and Tuesday the 29th. The next great crash, in 1987, was also dubbed “Black Monday”, however that crash ultimately only deflated a bull market and didn’t extend into the general economy (indeed, it is sometimes said that it was “black” only in the sense that a lot of people made a lot of profit in its immediate aftermath). And just three years ago, October 10th (which was a Friday) marked the end of a week-long series of shocks the repercussions of which are still resonating through the world economy (even though the stock market itself has largely recovered).

I’m not saying we’re headed for another crash in the next seven-to-ten days, I’m just saying it’s not a good week to quit sniffing glue.

Still A Few Good Guys Left

By Brian Filed in News, Politics, Videos Tagged with Afghanistan, American politics, Bernie Sanders, Congress, Dennis Kucinich, Russ Feingold, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, unemployment, Wall Street July 1st, 2010 @ 11:03 am

The country lost another great legislator with the passing of Robert Byrd this week, but fortunately there remain a few dedicated individuals whose first priority remains the average citizen and not the corporate one:

Dennis Kucinich on the giant fraud being perpetrated on this country called the Afghanistan War:

(and similarly here at the Huffington Post)

Bernie Sanders on Republican stonewalling on unemployment benefits while demanding the end of the estate tax, which benefits only the wealthiest of Americans:

Russ Feingold on the gutting of the Wall Street reform legislation:

and also at Huffington Post.

It’s reassuring that for every Scott Brown, Mitch McConnell, Michelle Bachmann or Joe Barton there is still someone who can cut through the bullshit. It’s disappointing that these men are so few in the halls of power, and more disappointing still that the man in the White House does not stand with them.

Art Imitates Life

By Brian Filed in Links Tagged with bad bankers, bad economy, Crash of 1929, stock market, Voices For Democracy, Wall Street October 22nd, 2008 @ 1:09 pm

Next Thursday, October 29, is the 79th anniversary of the Crash of 1929. While the NYSE has already commemorated the event with its own spectacular Crash of 2008, a group called Voices For Democracy will be adding their own bit of art/commentary by placing the above ice sculpture in front of the New York Supreme Court building in New York City’s Foley Square, not far from Wall Street.

This same group installed similar ice sculptures of the word “DEMOCRACY” at the Republican AND Democratic conventions this summer. The ice sculptures take anywhere from 10 to 24 hours to melt away, which, given the recent shenanigans on Wall Street, is pretty much exactly the amount of time it took them to evaporate $2 TRILLION in wealth, or about as long as one of those AIG Executive Spa days.

BOHICA

By Brian Filed in Links, News Tagged with bad economy, banking crisis, Crash of 2008, New Deal, recession, Robert Reich, stock market, Wall Street January 23rd, 2008 @ 2:32 pm

Titan Uranus

Wall Street’s having another iffy-but-not-disastrous day — the Asian markets were all up, but the Europeans didn’t do well and that, in turn, has pushed the Dow down again. As I have followed the news and/or various websites where the situation is being discussed, I swear I have heard every possible prognostication from “no big deal” to “there’ll be blood in the streets”, so it’s very hard for someone like myself, with no genuine appreciation for the stock market or its relationship to the economy as a whole, to know who or what to believe. The only thing that just about everybody seems agreed upon is that we’re headed into a recession (or even a depression), if we aren’t already in one.

This American Prospect article from last week (pre-Gray Tuesday) is on the gloomier end of things. Harold Meyerson, the author (and the editor of TAP), expects that nothing short of a set of programs in scope and significance as the New Deal will be needed to reform the American economy, which (he says) has been undermined by the get-rich-quick schemes of unscrupulous businesses and the de-regulationist policies of the last 30 years. Obviously, he thinks the Democratic candidates for President have better solutions in mind than the Republican ones, but I personally think it’s wishful thinking to think whoever gets elected this year will bring much to the table.

Writing over at Slate, Daniel Gross says that the recession has a silver lining in the form of forcing American corporations to learn how to compete globally. His position is based on the assumption that the economy in the rest of the world is not as frighteningly dependent on the American consumer as it once was, and that the relatively strong position of the economies of countries in Asia, along with relatively neutral economies in the G7 will prevent the damage from going too deeply abroad. If the recession turns out to be short and shallow, it could benefit the American economy in the long run to correct the fundamentals from the bubble effects and put us in a good starting point for the next expansion.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes in Salon today that we are basically fucked. Bush’s plan to give everybody $800 isn’t going to do squat, housing prices haven’t begun to see the bottom of the barrel yet, the candidates are useless, and the only thing that will save us is a Cloverfield-sized monster bail-out from the foreign investors who we’re already into for far too much money.

Maybe panic-buying carrots isn’t such a wild idea. At least you can eat them when the money’s all gone.

Luckily, My Broker Is Bugs Bunny

By Brian Filed in Amuse, Links Tagged with bad economy, banking crisis, carrots, Crash of 2008, stock market, Wall Street January 22nd, 2008 @ 2:57 pm

BUY CARROTS YOU FOOLS!

Looks like this morning’s emergency move by the Federal Reserve Bank kept today from being “Black Tuesday” on Wall Street. The media are probably disappointed, since they had the Panic Mill running at full speed when I got up this morning, but surely they can assuage themselves with some bit of celebrity gossip about Britney or something. The local boys have Tom Brady’s foot to obsess about, so they won’t mind.

But let’s not waste a good opportunity to panic, shall we? Even if the market doesn’t tank today, it looks like the salad days for the stock market are over for a while. Some people have lost a lot of lettuce already, but some epxerts say it’ll be a long time before the market will turnip profit. The banks are leeking like a sieve, and brokers are trying to keep their clients from being too radish. Meanwhile, smart bunnies know that a down market is the best time to buy, and what we need to buy right now are CARROTS. You can wait until May 15 if you want, but I’m going to see if I can corn-er the market now.

Tag Wall Street

Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%

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Black Monday

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