Stress test results

hmmmmmmm...

Nation's Largest Banks Need $75 Billion, Federal Stress Tests Find
The nation's largest banks collectively need another $75 billion in equity to ride out potential losses due to the recession, according to long awaited government stress tests released today. Nine of the 19 banks do not need any new capital at all, including J.P Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

pardon the crudity, but fuck goldman sachs...

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GMAC needs to raise $13.1B in capital but there's something in the story I don't get

ok, here's the snippet with the part i don't get in bold...

The Federal Reserve has ordered the financing arm of General Motors to raise $13.1 billion in new capital to ensure the firm's stability in the face of heavy losses in mortgage and auto lending and costs related to taking over new loans for Chrysler dealers and customers, said sources familiar with talks between government and industry officials.

The sum is among the biggest required for any U.S. financial institution, and could prove difficult for GMAC to raise because of the limited nature of its business and poor quality of its loans. The firm has struggled in the past to raise money from private investors and has already received $5 billion in federal assistance. It is likely that the federal government would end up providing much, if not all, of the needed capital, but it remained unclear where that money would come from.

how does that square with the bofa story from yesterday (see earlier post) that said bofa needed $34B in capital... i'm not a math whiz but it seems to me $34B is a significantly larger sum than $13.1B... am i wrong...?

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Sibel Edmonds keeps on talking... Is anybody listening...?

to openly steal from atrios' "simple answers to simple questions"... uh, that would a a "no"...

still worth reading, if for nothing else than to keep your frustration and disgust factor, if not your blood pressure, high...

Those who have been elected to represent the people and their interests cannot pursue their own greed and ambitions by engaging in criminal or unethical activities against the interests of the same people they've sworn to represent, and then be given a pass.

[...]

[O]ur system is rotten at it's core; that in many cases we have been trying to deal with the symptoms rather than the cause.

I, like many others, believed that changing the Congressional majority in 2006 was going to bring about some of the needed changes; the pursuit of accountability being one. We were proven wrong. In 2008, many genuinely bought in to the promise of change, and thus far, they've been let down.

These experiences are disheartening, surely, but they are also eye-opening. I do see many vigilant activists who continue the fight. As long as that's the case, there is hope. More people realize that real change will require not replacing one or two or three, but many more. More people are coming to understand that the road to achieving government of the people passes through a Congress, but not the one currently occupied by the many crusty charlatans who represent only self-interest --- achieved by representing the interests of the few, rather than the majority of the people of this nation.

sigh... and now, over 100 days into the obama administration, what can we point to as real change...? nothing, i'm afraid, but happy talk and cosmetics... once again, we've been taken in by the old bait-and-switch...

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Need for an additional $34B in capital doesn't sound to ME like BofA passed the "stress test"

but, hey...! just crank those printing presses back up and toss 'em another $34B... no sweat... it's just chump change, really...

Bank of America Corp has been deemed to need as much as $34 billion in additional capital, according to the results of a government stress test, a source familiar with the results told Reuters late on Tuesday.

Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri declined comment.

A possible $34 billion capital shortfall is certain to increase pressure on CEO Kenneth Lewis, who was last week ousted by shareholders as chairman of the biggest U.S. bank.

That ouster could lay the groundwork for Lewis's eventual departure from the company he worked at for 40 years, including the last eight as chief executive.

It may also unnerve investors who had hoped the results of the stress tests on Bank of America and 18 other banks might show the industry was in less dire condition than had been feared. Shares of major U.S. banks have nearly doubled since bottoming out in early March.

when is somebody going to step in and declare all those bouncing dead cats really DEAD...?

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Crap, crap, and more crap

still lookin' for good news...

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Go-ll-e-e-e-eee... ANOTHER suicide that I somehow don't believe is one...

there's an awful lot o'suicidin' goin' on...

jonathan turley...

There is some more bad news for the D.C. bar this afternoon. Legal Times is reporting that Mark Levy, a well-known lawyer who headed the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice section of Kilpatrick Stockton has killed himself in his office — reportedly by a gunshot of a .38 calibre handgun to the head. The firm had told Levy that he was about to be laid off with a number of other lawyers due to the economy.

yeah, well, whatever... maybe so, maybe no... i'm inclined to doubt almost any and every story of current and former top officials committing 'suicide'... it's just too easy a way to get 'em to STFU...

wapo...

Based on detectives' interviews, police learned that Levy had been told he was among those being let go, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the case. Kilpatrick Stockton's Web site says Levy was head of the firm's Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Practice. He argued 16 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court during his career, it says.

Another source familiar with the case, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is not complete, said that yesterday would have been Levy's last day at work and that he was given four months of severance pay.

see anything wrong with this picture...? hmmmmm...? how likely is it that a major law firm in washington d.c. would lay off a former deputy assistant attorney general and the HEAD of its supreme court practice...? hmmmmmm...?? bloody UNLIKELY, i say...

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Citizens assemblies make slow progress in slowing down the mining industry's planned rape of Argentina

the rest of the world really ought to sit up and pay attention to the plethora of popular movements in latin america... they may be struggling against the powerful, monied elites, but at least they're out there DOING something...

Gathering in the Province of San Juan, the heart of the Argentinean mining industry, representatives of the Union of Citizens Assemblies reaffirmed their commitment to fighting an economic model which is plundering natural resources and destroying livelihoods.

[...]

Defined loosely as Citizens Assemblies, these organizations emerged in Argentina during the 1990s in response to the rapid advance of an economic model focused on the extraction or cultivation of primary materials for exportation.

“The neoliberal model pursued in particular by President Menem and which continues to a large extent today is one which values business interests and profit over the environment and the well-being of the population,” says Ramon Gomez of the Citizen’s Assembly of San Juan. “This model was imposed on us–there was no consultation whatsoever despite the fact that the arrival of multinational companies and the plundering of our natural resources, has a massive impact on our lives. It would have been suicide for us not to react–we had to come out and defend our lives and the environment. And so we began to organize and to present alternatives.”

Citizens Assemblies have since become important alternative spaces for involving citizens in local and national politics.

“As these spaces do not exist within institutional politics which in Argentina continue to be anti-democratic, we had to create them ourselves, they have become the only way we can have our voices heard,” says Gomez.

Among the main actions taken by Citizens Assemblies to demand change and express their repudiation of the current economic model are: road blocks, including blocking transportation of machinery or materials to the plants of multinational companies, mass demonstrations, events to humiliate public figures known as “escraches”, and symbolic hunger strikes. They also carry out information and education campaigns and research on an ongoing basis.

According to Gomez, the assemblies evolved naturally, based on a conviction that people power is the only way to bring about change.

they've got a real uphill battle on their hands, now that argentina has been tagged as a very ripe, relatively unexploited mining area...

Hailed as the mining industry’s “rising star,” with 75 per cent of its mining potential still unexplored, companies from countries including the U.S., Canada and South Africa have all expressed an interest in working in Argentina. Eighteen large-scale projects are planned for 2015, including one which would straddle the Andean peaks between Argentina and Chile. Known as the Pascual Lama project, it is lead by the world's largest gold miner, Barrick Gold Corp, of which former president George Bush the senior is amongst its board of directors.

when i taught my course a couple of summers ago in elko, nevada, the students were primarily from the mining industry, not a few of them from barrick... i got to tour a barrick open pit gold mine and was fascinated by the giant machinery and the unbelievable amounts of rock that have to be pulverized in order to obtain the tiniest amount of gold... i was also quite frankly horrified at the use of cyanide... yes, i knew cyanide was used in the process, but to see it up close, dripping into huge vats of mineral slurry is quite another level of reality... the guy who showed me around stressed barrick's mitigation procedures and showed me the extensive protections around their holding ponds... i was just stunned with the scale of the whole thing... also, i was acutely aware that i was seeing an operation that was under u.s. and nevada environmental regulations... god forbid what the same kind of operation would be like here in argentina...

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Still terrified of the coming pandemic...? Get over it...

here's the pig but where's the lipstick...?



meanwhile, back in the reality-based community...

Flu death toll 'less than feared'

Mexico has revised down the suspected death toll from swine flu from 176 to 101, indicating that the outbreak may not be as bad as was initially feared.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu.

comparable with that of seasonsal flu...? wait...! wait just a minute...! i thought i was supposed to be sequestered in some safe spot, isolated from the rest of humanity, wearing a mask, and trembling for fear of catching some deadly virus... now that i've swallowed the hype, hook, line and sinker, you tell me it's 'less than feared'...? have i summoned up all this paranoia for NOTHING...? hmmmmph...

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Is there any GOOD news out there...?

anywhere...? please share...



(actually, it's a magnificent, sunny, warm, brilliantly clear, autumn day here in buenos aires... some of the trees are in their fall colors and leaves are collecting on the sidewalks... it's the may 1 holiday and, as in most places around the world - except the u.s. - people are off work, schools are closed, and the signature smell of argentina, meat grilling over a parilla, is wafting through the air... i guess that's good enough news to tide me over for another day, eh...?)

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