Swiss are not happy about US probe of UBS

Now this is interesting:

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country’s biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy.
The populist SVP, the country’s biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider to help shut the camp down.
Switzerland should also reconsider its policy of representing the United States in countries where it has no diplomatic presence, the parliamentary SVP said in a statement.
The SVP said gold stored by the Swiss National Bank in the United States should be repatriated and Switzerland should ban the sale of U.S. funds in the country to protect Swiss investors after the failure of U.S. regulators.
The SVP has one minister in the seven-member Swiss government which is made up of the biggest four parties, but its populist policies have shaken up usually consensual Swiss politics.
via Swiss party wants to punish U.S. for UBS probe – Reuters.

You see, this is what happens, when the United States entangles itself in the affairs of other Governments. Switzerland has been a neutral country for years and a somewhat friend of ours, now they’ve become a enemy. Real smart there Barry, Real fucking smart.

Obama to Unveil Class Warfare Plan

I knew this was coming:

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.
In addition to tackling a deficit swollen by the $787 billion stimulus package and other efforts to ease the nation’s economic crisis, the budget blueprint will press aggressively for progress on the domestic agenda Obama outlined during the presidential campaign. This would include key changes to environmental policies and a major expansion of health coverage that Obama hopes to enact later this year.
A summary of Obama’s budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October will be delivered to Congress on Thursday, with the complete, multi-hundred-page document to follow in April. But Obama plans to unveil his goals for scaling back record deficits and rebuilding the nation’s costly and inefficient health care system Monday, when he addresses more than 100 lawmakers and budget experts at a White House summit on restoring “fiscal responsibility” to Washington.
In his weekly radio and Internet address today, Obama expressed determination to “get exploding deficits under control” and described his budget request as “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”
Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical to the nation’s future: “We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control.”
Obama faces the long-term challenge of retirement and health programs that threaten to bankrupt the government years down the road, as well as the more immediate problem of deficits bloated by spending on the economy and financial-system bailouts. His budget proposal takes aim at the short-term problem, administration officials said, but also would begin to address the nation’s chronic budget imbalance by squeezing savings from the federal health programs for the elderly and the poor.
Even before Congress approved the stimulus package earlier this month, this year’s deficit was projected by Congressional budget analysts to approach $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of the overall economy, the highest since World War II. With the stimulus and other expenses, some analysts say the annual gap between federal spending and income could approach $2 trillion when the fiscal year ends in September.
Obama proposes to dramatically reduce those numbers by the end of his first term, cutting the deficit he inherited in half, said administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the budget has yet to be released. His budget plan would keep the deficit hovering near $1 trillion in 2010 and 2011, but shows it dropping to $533 billion in 2013 — still high in dollar terms, but a more manageable 3 percent of the overall economy.
To get there, Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes. The savings would come primarily from “winding down the war” in Iraq, a senior administration official said. The budget assumes that the nation will continue to spend money on “overseas military contingency operations” throughout Obama’s presidency, the official said, but that number is significantly lower than the nearly $190 billion the nation budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan last year
via Washington Post – Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan.

Well, one can forget about any new jobs coming to Michigan or anywhere else in America, because if Businesses are taxed, they will not hire new people. Just more class warfare from the Democrats. I also notice that Obama is cutting funds to Iraq and Afghanistan, that will be the precursor to ending the war. Because you cannot fight a war, if you do not have the funds.

We are headed into a repeat of the 1990’s all over again, ending the deficit on the backs of the wealthy in the Country, while the rest of Country gets off scott free. Where is the fairness in that? The reason why this is so bad is this, if you tax the wealthy and business owners, they are much less likely to hire new employees and also they are less likely to spend money, thereby adding to the economy. This whole idea of the Democrats of Tax and Spending our way out of our Economic woes is just plain idiotic.

We are headed towards very scary times in America. Act accordingly.

(H/T and Thanks to Drudge)

Obama signs the Generational Theft Act and Promises Another, Markets Tank…

I figured this was coming:

The Story:

President Obama has not ruled out a second stimulus package, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said on Tuesday, just before Mr. Obama signed his $787 billion recovery package into law with a statement that it would “set our economy on a firmer foundation.”
The president said he would not pretend “that today marks the end of our economic problems.”
“Nor does it constitute all of what we have to do to turn our economy around,” Mr. Obama said at the signing ceremony in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. “But today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the way of playoffs.”
Mr. Gibbs, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Denver, said, “I think the president is going to do what’s necessary to grow this economy.” While “there are no particular plans at this point for a second stimulus package,” he added, “I wouldn’t foreclose it.”
Mr. Obama began the first leg of a two-day trip, using the museum ceremony to spotlight the bill’s clean-energy provisions. The president will also visit Phoenix, where he will unveil his new housing plan on Wednesday.
After a bruising legislative battle on the stimulus bill, which drew only three supporting votes from Republicans in the Senate and none in the House, the White House is trying to recapture the debate over the economy. Mr. Obama’s message is that the bill will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.
While the bill has been criticized by conservatives as bloated with pork-barrel spending, it has also been criticized by the left as too tepid and not bold enough to jumpstart the economy. Mr. Gibbs’s remarks on the plane seemed to echo that concern.
In describing the package, the press secretary called it “a strong start towards economic viability” and “the beginning of getting our economy back on track.”
via Signing Stimulus Bill, Obama Does Not Rule Out Another – NYTimes.com.

I figured Obama would do this, sign one porkus bill into law and say, “This is not the end, but just the beginning of the pork!”

Meanwhile, the markets basically tanked, even more so than last week: (Via the New York Times)

From Hong Kong to eastern Europe to Wall Street, financial gloom was everywhere on Tuesday.
Stock markets around the world staggered lower. In New York, the Dow fell more than 3 percent, coming within sight of its worst levels since the credit crisis erupted. Financial shares were battered. And rattled investors clamored to buy rainy-day investments like gold and Treasury debt.
It was a global wave of selling spurred by rising worries about how banks, automakers — entire countries — would fare in a deepening global downturn.
“Nobody believes it’s going get better yet,” said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Do you see that light at the end of the tunnel? Any kind of light? Right now, it’s not there yet.”
At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 297.81 points or 3.7 percent to 7,552.29 points as losses in General Motors, Bank of America and American Express dragged the blue chips lower. The only Dow stock in positive territory was Wal-Mart, which rose after reporting better-than-expected profits.
“If we get substantially below 800 then look out below,” said Marc Groz, chief investment officer at Topos, a risk-advisory firm in Greenwich, Conn.
The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index slid 3.7 percent to drop below 800, which analysts said was an important trading threshold.

Investors know what this is, it is basically nationalization of our Economy, our banks, everything. They are just not going to invest money in a Government owned banking system. I believe this drop is just the beginning. Wait till it totally collapses and the world is thrust into chaos. It will be an interesting time, indeed.

Stanford Financial Group busted in fraud charges

Well, this is quite interesting:

Stopping what it called a “massive ongoing fraud,” the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday accused Robert Allen Stanford, the chief of the Stanford Financial Group, of fraud in the sale of about $8 billion of high-yielding certificates of deposit held in the firm’s bank in Antigua. Also named in the suit were two other executives and some affiliates of the financial group.
In the complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Dallas, the S.E.C. accused Mr. Stanford and two associates — James M. Davis, a director and chief financial officer of Stanford Group and the Antigua-based bank affiliate, and Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of both organizations — with misrepresenting the safety and liquidity of the uninsured CDs.
The CDs were sold by Stanford International Bank through the firm’s registered broker-dealer and investment adviser, which are in Houston. Both the bank, which claims $8.5 billion in assets and 30,000 clients in 131 countries, and the brokerage unit, which operates about 30 offices in the United States, were named in the S.E.C. suit. Stanford Financial asserts that it advises about $50 billion in assets.
Shortly after 10 a.m. Central time, about 40 police officers and other law enforcement officials simultaneously entered Stanford Group’s two office buildings in Houston. Many of the law enforcement personnel carried large black briefcases. Stanford group’s headquarters are in two offices in Houston, one within a tower of the Houston Galleria shopping mall, and the other across the street.
A spokesman for Stanford Group declined to comment.
via Texas Financial Firm Accused of Fraud – NYTimes.com.

It is amazing how a major meltdown in the markets will expose the frauds.

Vox Day Snarks:

What, there was something fishy about high-yield Antiguan CDs? Really? What will shock us next, the discovery that the import/export firm with the branch office in Medellin is selling coke?

Heh.

While I think it is alright to have a sense of humor about it. One must realize that there most likely some people “taking a bath” right about now. So, I shall keep the giggles to a minimum. Who I feel mot sorry for, are the peole who trusted these companies to invest thier money properly, and have gotten horribly screwed over. Those are the one’s I feel for.

Breaking Local News – G.M. to offer buyout packages to all union employees.

This is interesting…:

General Motors Corp. will offer buyouts to all of its hourly employees, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday, as the troubled automaker continues to slash costs.
GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said the buyouts will mainly target GM’s 22,000 retirement-eligible hourly employees, though any union employee can take the offer.
News of the buyouts first broke on Monday. A union official told The Associated Press then that GM would offer $20,000 in cash and a $25,000 car voucher for workers who retire early and those who simply leave the company. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because workers were not yet notified of the packages.
via GM To Offer Buyouts To All Hourly Employees — WDIV Detroit.

Just another sign of the times. For the record, G.M. has done this in the past, when times were bad. Hopefully some of the guys that have been with the company and are about ready to retire will take this buy out. Hopefully, this will help the problem and G.M. will become viable.

Should we give incentive bonuses to Wall Street Watchdogs?

I have fixed feelings about this, and I will explain why a little further down.

An Article in the New York Times Dealbook Column asks a question whether Wall Street Regulators or Watchdogs should get performance bonuses.

Maybe someone deserves a bonus.
Like someone who sniffs out the next Bernie Madoff. Or jousts with tomorrow’s gonzo bankers. Or defuses the Next Big Crisis in whatever Next Big Thing is dreamed up by Wall Street.
Someone, in short, who regulates.
It is clear that the nation’s financial regulators were no match for Wall Street last time. The financiers were always one step ahead. But maybe that isn’t surprising. The financiers, after all, have a big incentive to outsmart the financial police. It is called a bonus. Wall Street lures a lot of bright minds with money. How can federal agencies compete? They can’t.

So, of course, The Government of Singapore’s head honcho says we ought to incentivize watchdog process.

Tony Tan Keng Yam, deputy chairman and executive director of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, suggested that one reason American regulators fell down on the job was that they were paid too little.
“You must have as good people working in the government in the regulatory authorities as those that are working in the private sector,” Mr. Tan said. “You do need, particularly in these very difficult times, capable people in central banks, in government, in the Treasury who can effectively supervise.”
Mr. Tan knows about this firsthand. He is a former regulator himself, and Singapore has a different view about compensation.
“We pay our politicians and our government servants very well,” he said. “We lock remuneration to the market.”
While Singapore’s watchdogs aren’t paid enough to afford private planes, some in top positions make seven-figure salaries.

At first blush, this would seem to be a great idea; however, if you think about it closely, this would not be such a good idea. Because of the following:

Some at Davos thought the bonus idea could work. But anxiety over that approach was palpable. “They already treat us like criminals,” one hedge fund manager said.
A few said giving bonuses to regulators would be like giving bonuses to the police for issuing speeding tickets. Maybe the regulators, like Wall Streeters, would start thinking about the money, rather than what is right. But maybe that’s exactly what Wall Street needs to slow down.

I must say, that I highly disagree with this idea. Why? While I believe that moderate regulation is a good idea on Wall Street; I believe that incentivizing the Wall Street watchdog process will result in a overzealous regulatory process, that will be solely based upon monitory compensation. This would be absolutely disastrous to the free market process in America. As well all know we already law enforcement that borderlines upon a police state. Doing this to Wall Street would cause a fear mentality amongst the financial sector and discourage investment.

We need regulation, not a financial police state.

The Mining Industry feels the pinch

It is not just the auto industry that is feeling the pinch of the economy, it seems that the mining industry is feeling it as well.

BIG mining companies have suffered an astounding reversal of fortunes in the past few months. As boom has turned to gloom, commodity prices have slumped, leaving mining firms with painful decisions to make. Rio Tinto is the latest to suffer. On Monday February 2nd the Anglo-Australian mining giant was forced to confirm press speculation, acknowledging that it is in talks with Chinalco, a state-owned Chinese aluminium maker. The Chinese firm may agree to a deal to help to alleviate Rio’s debts which were taken on before the credit crunch led to a foundering world economy.
Rio’s debt pile of some $40 billion was mostly run-up through its purchase of Alcan, a Canadian aluminium firm, in 2007. Around $9 billion is due later this year, and refinancing will be a tricky proposition given the parlous state of debt markets. Another $10 billion must be repaid in 2010. Rio has started a firesale of assets: it raised $1.6 billion last week by selling iron ore and potash businesses in Brazil and Argentina to Vale, a Brazilian rival. But prices are depressed and making a sale is not always possible—Rio has still not managed to offload Alcan’s packaging business, although it is reportedly in talks with a potential buyer.
via Rio Tinto, deeply indebted, seeks investment from China The Economist.

More fall out from a concept floated by the Democrats, that was based entirely upon risk. Thank you Bill Cinton for ruining America. 🙄

From the "Awesomeness" Stack

Earlier today, I received a tweet from John Hawkings over at Right Wing News. Which pointed to a posting over on his Blog. John Hawkings also runs the Conservative Ads over on BlogAds; which you can get great ad prices over there, might want to check that out.

Anyhow, there was this e-mail that John was talking about, that I guess he saw over at DailyKos, that was attributed a Michael Crowley , however Mr. Crowley says he did not write it, but just the same, the posting is quite awesome.

Check it out:

Continue reading “From the "Awesomeness" Stack” →

Quote of the Day

Some of the high-flying icons of the prosperity gospel—the belief that God rewards signs of faith with wealth, health, and happiness—have run into financial turbulence.
Not all of their troubles can be blamed on the nation’s economic crisis, say critics of the name-it-and-claim-it theology found in some charismatic churches.
“I believe the charismatic movement, of which I am a part, is in the midst of a dramatic overhaul,” said J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine. “God is shaking us.” Grady predicts the movement will look much different in a few years as it refocuses on evangelism and overcoming what he calls the distraction of “materialism, flashy self-promotion, and foolish carnality.” But Scott Thumma, a Hartford Seminary sociologist who studies megachurches, is not so certain.
“Most clergy who preach a prosperity gospel would interpret for their congregation any conflict, scrutiny, or questioning as an attack of the Devil and proof that they are following God,” he said.
***
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:6-12 KJV)

(via)

From the "Oh fuck a damn duck already!" stack…. Kids that have way too much damn money..

I got this from my Buddy Ryan, who hooked me up with this nice assed hosting that I have.

All the way through these videos, I found myself blurting out, “Oh fuck a damn duck! Those kids are fucking spoiled as hell, that’s just too much!”

Seriously, Watch the damn videos, you’ll see what I mean.

Update: Hmmmm… The videos didn’t want to run locally here, when I embedded them, so, here’s the link to them.

Video 1 and Video 2

Hopefully that will work.