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Good Morning!
Rhododenrons in bloom in Pennsylvania. May, 2012. Photo credit: joanneleon
The Pledge of Aggrievance
by, S.A. Griffin
we pledge aggrievance
to the flag
of the United States of Wall Street
and to the stock market
for which it stands
one nation
under siege
(in)visible
with no civil liberty
or corporate justice
we fall
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Drop in
any time
day or night
to say hello.
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News
JPMorgan's Demon beached by a whale
Back in December 2008 when JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon was being routinely feted as the great survivor of the financial crisis, he popped up on CNBC television.
‘‘The pedestal is a terrible place to be,’’ the banker declared. ‘‘I almost want to get knocked off the pedestal so I don’t have to hear this anymore.’’
[ ... ]
As mea culpas go, it was a decent effort. But Dimon stopped short of telling the whole story, of how a trader nicknamed the ‘‘London Whale’’ had made an ill-fated attempt to corner a part of the credit derivatives market and was now drowning in losses.
Or how Dimon had spectacularly undermined his own campaign for regulators to go easier on the banks - especially on proprietary trading. Or that, with the shares down 7 per cent, JPMorgan could lose the star dust attached to its stock market rating.
JPMorgan Loss Claims Official Who Oversaw Trading Unit
Ina Drew, a 55-year-old banker who has worked at the company for three decades and is the chief investment officer, has offered to resign and will step aside Monday, said several bank executives who would not speak publicly because the resignations had not been completed.
[ ... ]
Executives said that within the last several months, Ms. Drew told traders at the bank’s chief investment office to execute trades meant to shield the bank from the turmoil in Europe. Ms. Drew thought those bets could protect the bank from losses and even earn a tidy profit, these employees said.
But when market tides abruptly shifted in April and early May, Ms. Drew’s instructions to traders to trim what had become a gigantic bet came too late to avoid racking up losses that could eventually exceed the current $2 billion estimate. Within the bank, there is also ample frustration that instead of reducing the losses, Ms. Drew’s traders may have worsened them.
JP Morgan's Loss Could Be America's Gain
Since the financial train wreck of September 2008, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has fought tooth and nail against any new federal regulations of Wall Street. Now with his bank's recent loss of $2 billion (and counting) involving the same credit default swaps (CDSs) that played a key role in bringing down the financial system, Mr. Dimon apparently wants us all to forgive and forget and let him get on with business as usual.
The public opprobrium directed at Wall Street throughout 2008 and 2009 met with no satisfactory reformist result. The white-collar perps responsible for plunging American society into the abyss were rewarded for their malfeasance and walked away as rich and powerful as ever. Jamie Dimon personifies the hubris of these self-anointed "Masters of the Universe" and his pathetic attempts to spin his way out of the current CDS boondoggle is another glaring reminder of the wider lack of accountability.
[ ... ] It has become abundantly clear in recent years that neither the Obama Administration nor the Congress has the will to take on the financial services oligopoly. Dimon, with his political clout, became the poster boy for everything that is wrong with Wall Street, and through his high-profile lobbying efforts, Washington as well.
Any setback to the policy-making elite's long-term project of pauperizing the working class in this country is a good thing. Jamie Dimon's $2 billion comeuppance is already sparking a renewed effort to impose a tougher version of the Volcker Rule that would at least ban the kind of proprietary trading in derivatives that caused JP Morgan's recent multi-billion dollar losses. The shattering of this latest Wall Street Ponzi scheme is a good thing because it shifts the optics and forces a conversation about greater federal oversight.
Elizabeth Warren Calls for Dimon to Resign From New York Fed
Dimon, who disclosed a $2 billion trading loss by his bank last week, shouldn’t stay on the board of the New York Fed because “he advises the Federal Reserve on the oversight of the financial industry,” she said in an e-mail release.
[ ... ]
“After the biggest financial crisis in generations, the American people are frustrated that Wall Street has still not been held accountable and does not appear to consider itself responsible,” she said. “Dimon should resign from his post at the New York Fed to send a signal to the American people that Wall Street bankers get it and to show that they understand the need for responsibility and accountability.”
JPMorgan Unit's London Staff May Go as Loss Prompts Exits
The entire London staff of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s chief investment office is at risk of dismissal as a $2 billion trading loss prompts the first executive departures as soon as this week, a person familiar with the situation said.
The firm is examining whether anyone in the unit, which employs a few dozen people in London, sought to hide risks, said the person, who requested anonymity because the deliberations are private. Ina Drew, who oversees the unit, is among three people set to leave, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. Joseph Evangelisti, a bank spokesman, said Drew would have no comment.
Angela Merkel dealt further blow by German voters in key state election
North Rhine-Westphalia re-elects SPD-Greens in bellwether result seen as a rejection of her austerity measures at local level
Voters in Germany's most populous state handed a resounding victory to the centre-lefton Sunday, dealing a heavy blow to Angela Merkel's conservatives in what was interpreted as a backlash against the chancellor's European austerity campaign.
[ ... ]
The SPD secured 39% of the vote to the CDU's 26% in what amounted to the worst result in the state for the conservatives since 1949. The Greens took 12%, ensuring that a coalition with the SPD would mean a 10-seat majority in the state parliament. The Free Democratic party (FDP), Merkel's coalition partner in the federal government, took 8.5% of the vote.
The parvenu Pirates party, whose platform is based on greater openness in government through technology, were celebrating their fourth successive entry into a regional parliament after polling 7.5%.
EU leaders set for showdown on fate of euro as crisis deepens
Europe is braced for a crucial 48 hours of high-stakes summitry likely to decide whether Germany and France can strike a grand bargain aimed at dispelling growing pessimism over the chances of the single currency surviving in its current form.
While eurozone finance ministers are to meet on Monday in Brussels, apparently at a loss over how to respond to political paralysis in Greece and a worsening crisis in Spain, all eyes are on François Hollande, the new French leader, who is to go to Berlin for his first face-to-face meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as soon as he is sworn in as president on Tuesday.
Hollande, Europe's new champion of growth policies, lines up against Merkel, the dominant cheerleader of austerity as the solution to the crisis.
Analysis: European elections a warning to Obama
The failure of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s party in a major state election Sunday is another reminder to Democrats of a fundamental reality of politics — in recessions, voters tend to punish the party in charge.
[ ... ]
Merkel herself, who will meet with President Obama at summit gatherings this coming weekend, does not need to face a national election until 2013. Elsewhere in Europe, however, national leaders have fallen right and left. On the right, Merkel’s ally, French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost his reelection bid earlier this month to Socialist Francois Hollande. On the left, Britain’s Labor party, which had governed for 13 years, lost in 2010 to the Conservatives under David Cameron. Similarly, in Spain, the recession helped topple the socialist government in 2011. Governments have also fallen in Italy and Greece, among others.
Each of those elections involved unique factors — local issues, contrasting campaign styles, differing personalities and the like. But the overall pattern — familiar to political scientists — is a simple one: The swing voters in elections in most democracies tend to be non-ideological. When times are bad, they tend to agree with candidates who argue that the incumbent’s policies haven’t worked, let’s try something new. Right now, that’s the theme being put forward by the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney.
Robert Fisk: Must we stand idly by while world leaders spout this codswallop?
Funny how the news agenda gets tired. Like the quotes. Only a couple of months ago, we were all bracing for Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear installations. And for serious pressure on Bashar al-Assad to end his "barbaric campaign". I quote Susan Rice, La Clinton's lady at the UN. And now? Well, Bashar lingers in his palace while Iran goes off the boil. Instead, it's the underpants bomber. Or the super-underpants bomber. Or rather the super-underpants bomber who wasn't – because it was a sting operation and a CIA man (or a British agent "of Middle East origin"; choose as you wish) posed as a would-be super-underpants bomber to get hold of the super-underpants bomb so it could be taken to pieces by the lads and lasses in Langley, Virginia.
I weary a bit of this stuff. If the CIA and the Brits and the Saudis have really penetrated al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula – or AQAP, as we are now enjoined to call it, although the acronym sounds a bit like an insurance company – all well and good. But the fact that the Saudis originally supported the Taliban and that al-Qa'ida was until recently led by a Saudi and that most of the 9/11 bombers were Saudis and that an awful lot of other al-Qa'ida men are Saudis, does take the gleam offthe cup.
Classical music flash mob turns subway car into symphony orchestra
The Copenhagen Philharmonic really knows how to make a subway commute more beautiful. Musicians took over a train car during what looks like the morning rush hour, and gave riders a surprise performance of “Morning Mood” from the Peer Gynt suite (aka the music that plays any time a cartoon shows a sunrise).
Psych! World won’t end this year after all
We’re definitely hurtling towards doom, but take heart: At least the world isn’t going to end for a stupid reason like “Mayan prophecy.” It will end for a totally smart reason like “perfectly able-bodied people unwilling to quit driving two blocks to the gym.”
[ ... ]
Except as it turns out, 2012 isn’t the last year on the Mayan calendar at all — it’s just the last year on the calendar we happened to be looking at. Boston University archaeologist William Saturno and his team has found an amazing trove of millennium-old art in Guatemala, including tables showing at least 7,000 years of future astronomical calculations.
Afghan police kill two UK servicemen in Helmand province
Two British servicemen have been shot dead in southern Afghanistan by members of the Afghan national police force, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The men, who were serving as part of an advisory team, were killed on Saturday as they provided security for a meeting with local officials near Patrol Base Attal.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said he believed one of the gunmen was then killed by his Afghan police colleagues, while a second escaped.
The triage commander: Gen. John Allen hastily transforming U.S. mission in Afghanistan
GELAN, Afghanistan — Standing in a plywood-walled command post before Gen. John R. Allen, the supreme allied commander in Afghanistan, the nervous-but-earnest young lieutenant cast his platoon’s task for the day in the grand terms of counterinsurgency strategy — the American military’s wartime playbook for the past several years. The goal of the platoon’s walk through a bazaar and meetings with village leaders, the lieutenant said, was for the Afghan government to be “seen as an effective governing body that gains legitimacy with the local population.”
Such ambition used to elicit enthusiastic praise from visiting generals. Not anymore.
Military research at record amounts as war winding down
Proponents of battlefield research cite a storied history of breakthroughs that included field ambulances in the Civil War and the discovery of the causes of yellow fever following the Spanish-American War.
"It's a real opportunity," says Maj. Gen. Richard Thomas, a doctor who returned from Afghanistan in February. "Combat is the greatest catalyst to medical innovation."
Iraq's Kurds fire back in dispute with Iran over Mossad
ARBIL: The government of Iraq's Kurdish region fired back on Saturday over allegations by Iranian diplomats and officials that Kurdistan was playing host to Israeli intelligence.
Kurdish authorities described the claims, made in previous weeks, as 'untrue', after Iran's consul in regional capital Arbil said Israeli spies were using Kurdistan as a base to work against neighbouring Iran. "This is not the first time that Iranian officials are saying this without presenting evidence or reasons," the Kurdish regional government said in a statement.
US insists Iraq police training not being scrapped
BAGHDAD — The US embassy in Baghdad insisted on Sunday it had no plans to shut down a multi-billion-dollar police training programme that it said was a "vital part" of its enormous civilian mission here.
Responding to a New York Times report that the US may phase the programme out entirely, the embassy did not comment on the newspaper's claims it would reduce the number of police advisers to just 50 or directly address charges it spent more than $100 million on a facility that it will no longer use.
Now, the embassy is the biggest in the world, with 12,755 personnel as of April -- 1,369 government officials and the remainder contractors.
US Escalates Drone War on al Qaeda in Yemen
The United States is intensifying its strikes in Yemen and increasing its presence there as it pursues al Qaeda.
Two suspected U.S. drone strikes killed 11 suspected al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen Saturday, according to military officials in the country. The news comes on the heels of an escalation in drone activity.
Just two days earlier, two airstrikes in southern Yemen killed seven, including two top al Qaeda leaders. And merely a week ago a drone strike killed Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, the Yemeni al Qaeda operative responsible for 2000′s USS Cole bombing.
Underwear bomb plot: British and US intelligence rattled over leaks
Leak about UK involvement described as despicable by CIA as anger turns to Obama administration for compromising mission
Detailed leaks of operational information about the foiled underwear bomb plot are causing growing anger in the US intelligence community, with former agents blaming the Obama administration for undermining national security and compromising the British services, MI6 and MI5.
The Guardian has learned from Saudi sources that the agent was not a Saudi national as was widely reported, but a Yemeni. He was born in Saudi Arabia, in the port city of Jeddah, and then studied and worked in the UK, where he acquired a British passport.
Drowned Libya oil chief feared going home
May 13 (Reuters) - Spat at in public by a fellow Libyan who called him a thief, watching his back on long walks through Vienna, eating poorly; Muammar Gaddafi's fugitive oil supremo was a troubled man in the months before he was found drowned in the Danube two weeks ago.
Police found no suicide note and accidental drowning seems, to some, a freakish coincidence. So it may be no surprise that in a city steeped in international intrigue, from the cinematic Cold War underworld of "The Third Man" to Carlos the Jackal's OPEC hostage taking of 1975, talk of murder dies hard:
"It was a professionally executed crime," concluded Noman Benotman, a prominent Libyan analyst and long-time opponent of Gaddafi who conceded he lacked any hard evidence. "It is the global energy mafia. It's to do with corruption, secret deals. People wanted to make sure he is not around any more to talk."
Military calls out MacKay on math for Libya mission
Defence minister lowballed cost estimate
Defence Minister Peter MacKay, already facing heat over the cost of the F-35 fighter aircraft, found himself fighting a second front Friday after confirmation he knew the Libya mission would cost tens of millions more than he told Canadians.
"He knew the estimates, for sure," Maj.-Gen. Jon Vance said. "In fact, he presents the estimates to cabinet. So yes, the minister would have known what the all-up estimated costs of the mission could be."
Election candidate murdered in south Libya
TRIPOLI — A candidate in the upcoming poll for a constituent assembly was murdered in Libya's southern desert on Sunday shortly after submitting his registration, a security official said.
"Khaled Abu Saleh was murdered 30 kilometres (22 miles) from Ubari," in the south of Libya, Mohammed Saleh, deputy chairman of the High Security Commission, told AFP.
"An armed gang traveling in five cars followed him after he registered with the electoral commission. They surrounded and killed him," the official said.
U.N. says three Libya prisoners likely tortured to death
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Several prisoners likely were tortured to death at a detention center in Libya under government control, the United Nations said on Thursday as it urged the country to make stamping out such practices a top priority.
Libya's Justice Ministry has control of 31 detention centers with some 3,000 detainees, but about 4,000 prisoners are still in the custody of Libyan revolutionary brigades, U.N. special envoy for Libya Ian Martin told the U.N. Security Council.
[ ... ]
"The deaths all occurred on April 13 and we have credible information that they were a direct result of torture, as well as information that at least seven other persons were tortured at the same facility," he said.
U.S. trains African soldiers for Somalia mission
Despite the warnings, the number of recruits graduating from this boot camp — built with U.S. taxpayer money and staffed by State Department contractors — has increased in recent months. The current class of 3,500 Ugandan soldiers, the biggest since the camp opened five years ago, is preparing to deploy to Somalia to join a growing international force composed entirely of African troops but largely financed by Washington.
To stop the war on South Sudan, the U.S. should send weapons
Although the South has a large, well-motivated ground army, it has no air force or antiaircraft weapons to defend its people. Southern leaders believe Bashir and his generals plan to invade, occupy oil fields and install a puppet government that will give them control over oil revenue lost when the South became independent.
[ ... ]
The decision to arm the South shouldn’t be controversial. The United States has provided more than $30 million per year in military technical assistance with bipartisan support from Congress to the Southern Sudanese army since 2006. I know because, as U.S. envoy to Sudan under President George W. Bush, I helped put the program in place. Because the Republic of South Sudan is a sovereign state, the United States can provide military assistance without the approval of the U.N. Security Council or the African Union.
Gulf Arab envoys study proposals for greater ties
Worries about Saudi dominance have already frozen plans for a common Gulf currency.
"For all the sense more GCC integration makes, the challenges to a European Union-like structure is fraught with questions, challenges and potential pitfalls," said an editorial Monday in the Abu Dhabi-based The National newspaper, which often reflects the views of United Arab Emirates' authorities.
Without doubt, however, the upheavals of the Arab Spring have forced stronger collective action from the Western-allied group, which includes Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE.
The Gulf Arab states have stepped up their international roles to openly support rebel forces in places such as Libya and Syria.
At the same time, they have bonded together in clampdowns on perceived opposition groups in the Gulf and have taken a hard line against Shiite giant Iran, which it accuses of encouraging protests against the Sunni ruling systems in Bahrain and elsewhere. Iran denies the claims.
Read the whole thing for the dots that Marcy connects here.
Obama’s Commitment to Atrocities Prevention Lasts Less than 3 Weeks
Remember how Obama rolled out a campaign to prevent atrocities three weeks ago.
“Never again”?
[ ... ]
And where the readout says “the Vice President reaffirmed the US commitment to our long-standing partnership” with this atrocity committing state? That translated into the announcement that the US was going to sell weapons to Bahrain.
The Obama Administration no doubt knows how bad this looks. [ ... ]
The State Department insists that none of the weapons they’re selling (of which they have provided no public list–you’ll just have to trust them) can be used for “crowd control.” Less explicit, though clearly understood by all, is that these arms will target–um, defend Bahrain from–Iran. CNN’s sources talk about interoperability. And State Departments officials who, at a briefing, connected this arms sale to the Strategic Cooperation Forum–basically a closer military cooperation between the GCC and the US which Hillary rolled out at the end of March in Riyadh. At that meeting, Hillary explicitly tied “interoperability” to Iran.
Blog Posts of Interest
This is a new section in the What's Happenin' diaries that will be updated throughout the day to promote selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
1% Want To Steal Your Social Security, Pres. Obama Is Helping Them on DailyKos by joe shikspack
Unholy Partnerships Between Telecoms & Government Spy Agencies: Have We Learned Nothing? on DailyKos by Jesselyn Radack